The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-04 00:00:00

to fight for its independence of Great Britain
than they have for their independence of the
tariff: The reasonable language of the President
on this subject, where he allows that the redemp-
tion of the national debt affords the means, and
that sounder views of commerce show the ex-
pediency, of limiting import duties to the pro •
tection of such branches of national industry as
are necessary for the public defence, has been
echoed by the Secretary of the Treasury in his
report on the finances of the Union. " If,"
says the President, " upon investigation, it shall
he found, as it is believed it will be, that the
legislative protection granted to any particular
interest is greater than is indispensably requisite
for these objects, I recommend that it be gra-
dually diminished ; and that, as far as may be
consistent with those objects, the whole scheme
of duties he reduced to the revenue standard as
soon as a just regard to the faith of the Go-
vernment, and to the preservation of the large
capital invested in establishments of domestic
industry, will permit." Mr. Maclane, in
his Treasury report, is equally reasonable
and explicit. He shows that the national debt,
so far as it can be paid off, will be entirely dis-
charged at the beginning of the present year,—
that the United States will then have no former
incumbrances to liquidate, and only very mo-
derate annual establishments to provide for,—
that 15,000,000 of dollars will amply meet all
the necessary expenditure for the internal go-
vernment and external defence of the Confede-
ration,—and that if the public lands still con-
tinue to rema:n at the disposal of the General
Government, more than 6,000,000 of dollars
may be remitted in taxation. The following
passage in Mr. Maclane's report (which press of
matter prevents us giving at length) is particu-
larly deserving of notice, as at once conciliatory
in spirit, and just in principle :
"In the decision of this question the pi e'ent crisis in
the United States, pregnant with the deepest interest, must
have its weight—an interest arising not so much from an
apprehension of weakness in the laws, or of inability to
execute them, as from a universal conviction, throughout
a large portion of the Union, of the necessity of a change,
and of the propriety of paying a reasonable deference to
that opinion. The harmony and brotherly affection of the
citizens of different parts of this great Republic, if not the
preservation of the Union itself, appeal to the patriot and
statesman for the exercise of their highest qualities in regu-
lating the burdens of the people consistently with the
equal rights of all, and in rendering the laws not less free
and equal than the institution sunder which they are enact-
ed. The occasion invokes the spirit of liberal concession
and compromise which laid the foundations of our inesti-
mable Union ; and on such an occasion, patriotism re-
quires that no one interest should exact more than will be
consistent with the welfare of the whole. Such an appeal
comes with force to all; but, in an essential manner, may
be made to those who have so long reaped the advantage
of those burdens, from which their brethren throughout
the Union, after having submitted to them while the pub-
lic obligations and the national defence and independence
required it, now ask to be relieved."

Whether the Congress will agree to such a
modification of the tariff as will meet the views
of the Executive here expressed, or whether the
southern states will be satisfied with any change
short of absolute freedom, cannot at present be
anticipated with certainty. Both the President
and the Financial Minister are prepared to lower
the existing duties, but do not altogether aban-
don the principle of protection, while the Con-
vention of South Carolina insists on the aban-
doninent of that principle, and the imposition of
equal taxes solely for the purpose of a national
revenue. Here the two parties of tariffites and
nullers (as they call themselves) are directly at
issue, and a reduction of duties which might be
grudged by one party as too liberal would be
refused by the other as altogether inadequate.
" Of all Governments on the face of the earth,"
say the Carolinians, " the Federal Government
has the least shadow of a right to exercise such
a power" (as that, namely, of protecting one
section of the Union at the expense of another).
" It was created principally and almost exclu-
sively for the purpose of protecting, improving,
and extending that very commerce which, for the
last ten years, all its powers have been most un-
naturally and unrighteously perverted to cripple
and destroy." This violent Convention, however,
softens a little towards the end of its address,
and seems to hint that, by lowering import
duties to the amount of the revenue required
for the expenditure of the Union, and by de-
stroying the distinction in the tariff between
protected and unprotected articles, they will
lay down their weapons of rebellion, dismiss their
militia, and return to their federal allegiance.
The Executive has met them half way, and, not-
withstanding their bluster, there seems little
danger of a complete rupture or civil war. It
cannot fail to strike the English readers as a curi-
osity, that these animated manifestoes from the
southern states about their commercial rights,—
full of enthusiastic expressions of freedom,—
glowing with patriotic appeals to a constitution
which ought equally to protect the franchises of
all,—and even sometimes warmed with " the
live coal" from the altar of Christian piety, pro-
ceed from the masters of slaves, and that their
very feast of liberty is served by bondsmen.
Who would believe, unless he were assured by
undeniable statistical accounts, that in South
Carolina the representatives of about a quarter
of a million of whites should hold the following
language amid 315,000 of their fellow-creatures
whom they call " their property," and whom
they drive to the field with the cart-whip, while
they complain of the despotism of the Govern-
ment in depriving them of a portion of their slave
labour ? !
" It does not belong to freemen to count the costs
and calculate the hazards of vindicating their rights and
defending their liberties ; and even if we should stand alone
in the worst possible emergency of this great controversy
without the co-operation or encouragement of a single state
of the confederacy, we will march forward with an un-
faltering step, until we have accomplished the object of this
great enterprise."— Times.

In taking pains, on several occasions, to ex-
plain the cause of the differences between the
southern and northern sections of the American
Union respecting the tariff duties, anti in justi-
fying the resistance of the former to those im-
posts, we have generally secured the acquiescence
of the sensible public in our decision. Even
" the enemies of free trade" (as they ridicu-
lously call themselves), and the supporters of
the corn-•laws, have not ventured to say a word
against the principles brought forward by South
Carolina and Georgia against the claim of the
northern States to tax their industry in order to
encourage particular branches of domestic ma-
nufacture, or to argue in favour of the claims of
the northern States to protect their peculiar
manufactured products at the expense of their
southern agricultural confederates. We waited
with some anxiety to see what course of
reasoning our Conservatives, or our anti-
treedom-of-trade people, or our advocates
for the corn monopoly, would take on this
question ; and, behold ! they are all silent,
or, if they speak out, conduct themselves
with their usual ignorance, fighting against their
own conclusions with American premises. The
truth is, that the whole question of the ad.
vantages and disadvantages of free trade has