Lancaster gazette. [volume] (Lancaster, Mass.) 1828-1830, 1829-02-03

declaration of consent to State tariffs in
favour OF State manufactures, and the
permitted attempts did not defeat them
selves, what would be the situation OF
States deriving their foreign supplies
through the ports of other States 1t is
evident that they might be compelled to
pay, IN their consumption Of particular
articles imported, tax for the common
treasury, not common to all the States,
without having any manufacture or prod
uct Of their own, to partake of the con-
templated benefit.
/ OF the impracticability of separate reg
nlations Of trade, and the resulting neces-
sity of general regulations, no State was
more sensible than Virginia. She was
accordingly among the most earnest for
granting to Congress power adequate
to the object. On more occasions than
one in the proceedings other Legislative
councils it was recited " that the relative
situation Of the States had been found.
on trial, TO require uniformity in their
commercial regulations as the only effect
ual policy for obtaining in the ports of
foreign nations a stipulation of privileges
reciprocal to those enjoyed by the sub
jects of such nations in the ports of the
United States for preventing animosi-
ties which cannot fail to arise among the
several States from the interference of
partial and separate regulations and for
deriving from commerce such aids to the
publick revenue as it ought to contribute,
&C."
During the delays and discouragements
experienced in the attempts to invest
Congress with the necessary powers, the
State Of Virginia made various trials of
what could be done by her individual
laws. She ventured on duties and i'm
posts as source ofrevenue resolutions
were passed at one time to encourage
and protect her own navigation and ship
buildings; and in consequence Of COM
plants and petitions from Norfolk, Alex
andria, and other places, against the
monopolizing navigation laws Of Great
Britain, particularly in the trade bets0eea
the United States and the British West
Indies, she deliberated, with purpose
controlled only by the ineficiency of sep
arate measures, on the experiment Of
forcing reciprocity by prohibitory regu-
lations of her own. See journal Of the
House of Delegates in 1885.
The effect Of her separate attempts to
raise revenue by duties on imports, soon
appeared in representations from her
merchants, that the commerce of the State
was banished by them into other channels,
especially Of Maryland, where imports
were less burdened than in Virginia.
[See Ditto for I7S6.
Such tendency ofseparate regulations
was indeed too manifest to escape antici-
patton. Among the projects prompted
by the want Of a Federal authority over
commerce, was that of concert first
proposed on the part Of Maryland for a
uniformity of regulations between the two
States, and Commissioners were appoint
ed for that purpose. 1t was soon per-
ceived, however, that the concurrence of
Pennsylvania was as necessary to Mary
land as of Maryland to Virginia, and the
concurrence of Pennsylvania was accord
ingy invited. But Pennsylvania could
no more concur without New-York than
Maryland without Pennsylvania, nor
New York without the concurrence of
4 Boston, &c.
/ These projects were superseded for
the moment by that of the Convention at
Annapolis inl7S6, and forever by the
Convention at Philadelphia in 1887, and
the Constitution which was the fruit Of
it.
There is passage in Mr.. Necker's
work on the finances of France which
affords signal illustration of the difficult
ty of collecting, in contiguous commune
ties, indirect taxes, when not the same in
| all, by violent means resorted to against
4 smuggling from one to another Of them.
Previous to the late Revolutionary war in
that country, the taxes were ofvery differ
ent rates in the different Provinces: par
ticularly the tax on salt, which was high
in the interiour provinces and low in the
maratime and the tax on tobacco, which
was very high in general, whilst in some
of the provinces the use of the article
was altogether free. The consequence
was, that the standing army of patrols
against smuggling had swon to the num-
Der of twenty-three thousand the annual
arrest Of men, women, and children, en-
gagged in smuggling, to five-ttonsand five
hundred and fifty; and the number annu.
. ally arrested on account of salt aud tobac.
co alone, to seventeen or eighteen hun.
bred, more than three hundred of whom
were consigned to the terrible punishment
of the Gallies.
i May it not be regarded as among the
providential blessings to these States, tina,
their geographical relations, multiplied
as they will be by artificial channels Of
intercourse, give such additional force tc
the many obligations to cherish that uni
. | -, ,,h,ob alone eanurac fba;r thai,