The Litchfield County post., 1829-01-15

| especially in Connecticut and Rhode Island, I the most thickIy settled of all the states, and having of course, their thoughts most turned I to the subject of manufactures. A like infer rnce may be confidently applied to New Jer- ] sry, whose debates in convention Lave not
 been preserved. In the popuIOus and manu- ! featuring state of P"nnsN !vania. partial ac- ! count only of the debates having been pub ! lished, nothing ccr' ain Is known of what pas l sed in her convention on this point. But am, pie evidence may be found elsewhere, that reg l uiat"ns of trade for the encouragement of manufactures, were considered as within the power to be granted to the new congress. as 1 well as within the scope of national policy Ofthe states south of Pennsylvania, the only two in whose conventions the debates have been preserved are Virginia and North Caro- lima. and from these no adverse differences can be drawn. Nor is there the slightest indica- tion that either of the two states farthest south, whose debates in convention. if preser- we'd have not been made public, viewed the encouragement of manufactures, as not with
 in the general power over trade to be trans tcrrCd to the Government of the United States.
 6. IfCongress have not the power,it is an- nliIilated for the nation; policy without ex a mple in any other nation,and not within req son of the solitary one in our own. The ex- ample alluded to, is the prohibition of tax on exports, which resulted from the impOss- bility of raising in that mode. revenue from 1 the states, es,proportioned to the ability of some
 to pay it--the ability of some being derived { in great measure, not from their exports,
 but from their fisheries, from their freights,& &
 from commerce at large, in some of its bran
 ches altogether external to the United States;
 the profits from all winch being invisible and 1 intangible, would escape tax on expOrts.-
 A tax on imports on the other hand, being a
 tax on consumption, which is in proportion l to the ability of the consumers, whencesoev-
 CT derived was free from that inequality. ] 7. If revenue be the sole object of that le-
 gitimate impost, and the encouragement of
 domestic articles be not within the power of
 regulating trade, it would follow that no mo- nopolizing or unequal regulations of foreign
 nations, could be enumerated; that neither
 the staple articles of subsistence, nor the es-
 sential implements for the public safety could under any circumstances, be insured or fos- { tered at home, by regulations of commerce,
 the usual and most convenient mode of provi-
 ding for both and that the American navi-
 gation, though the source of naval defence, ! of a cheapening competition in carrying our
 valuable and heavy articles to market, and of
 an independent carriage of them during for 1 eign wars, when foreign navigation might be ] withdrawn. must be abandoned at once, or speedily destroyed; t being evident that 1 tonnage duty in foreign ports against our yes sels, and an exemption from such duty in our ports, in favour of forelgn vessels, must have the inevitable effect of banishng ours
 from the ocean.
 To assume power to protect our naviga- ton and the cultivation and fabrication of all articles requisite for the publick safety, as in
 cident to the war power, would be more lat itudinary construction of the text of the con-
 stitution than to consider it as embraced by
 the specified power to regulate trade; apOw- CT which has been exercised by all nations for
 those purposes, and which effects those pur-
 poses with less of interference with the au-
 thority and conyenienLy of the States, than
 might result from Internal and direct modes
 of encouraging the articles, any of which
 modes would be authorized, as far as deemed
 necessary, by considering the power as an
 incidental power. 8. That the encouragement of manufac tnres was an object of the power to regulate 1 trade, is proved by the use made of the pow CT for that object, in the first session of the first congress under the constitution when "'A'"'o '''S aASAips'' I''So oShN "t'S ." ''ohy who had been members of the Federal Con vention which framed the constituton.and of the State conventions which ratified it; each ofthcse classes consisting also of members
 who had opposed and who had espoused the 1 constitution in its actual form. It does not appear from the printed proceedings of con
 gress on that occasion, that the power was denied by any of them. And it may be re-
 marked, that members tror, Virginia in par
 ticular, as well of the Ansi-Federal as the
 Federal party the names then distinguishing
 those who had opposed and those who had
 approved the constitution, did not hesitate to ] propose duties and to suggest even prohibit
 tions in favor of several articles of her pro- 1 duction.
 By one duty on mineral coal vas propos-
 ed in favor of the Virginian coal pits by an other, duty was proposed or hemp, to en- courage the growth of that article and by . third prohibition even of foreign beef was
 suggested as a measure of sound policy. See
 Lloyd's Debates.
 ! A further evidence in support ofthe consti-
 tutional power to protect and foster manu- ! factures by regulations of trade, an evidence
 that ought, of itself to settle the question, is
 the uniform and practical sanction given to
 the power by the General Government. for
 nearly forty years; with a concurrence or
 acquiescence of every state government ,thro'