US Presidency
1850

Every motive of policy and duty, therefore, impels me to ask the earnest attention of Congress to this subject. IfCongress should deem it unwise to attempt any important changes in thesystem of levying duties at this session, it will become indispensableto the protection of the revenue that such remedies as in the judgmentof Congress may mitigate the evils complained of should be at once applied. As before stated, specific duties would, in my opinion, afford the mostperfect remedy for this evil; but if you should not concur in this view, then, as a partial remedy, I beg leave respectfully to recommend that insteadof taking the invoice of the article abroad as a means of determining itsvalue here, the correctness of which invoice it is in many cases impossibleto verify, the law be so changed as to require a home valuation or appraisal, to be regulated in such manner as to give, as far as practicable, uniformityin the several ports.