Litchfield enquirer. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1829-current, 1844-10-17
From Me. .Ns.o YORK. 1Ii5une.

y =
Hon. SII.As WRIGHT, U. S. Senate! ..r- of .}.t
Sir: find in nearly all the journals of your poll
tics, and transfer thence to my own, report for
| the Albany Argus of Speech recently made BY
you at Watertown, so far it related to the Tariff
| publish this speech because i believe there is a
very marked and important difference between the
position OF your party and that of mine on the Ia
riff question, and that yours cannot triumph with
out bringing down devastation and ruin on the
great Industrial Interests of country. You, OF
course think otherwise and you are every where
| known and recognized as a very able and ingenious
champion of your own party. IT, therefore, you are
even half right, freely give your side the advant-
age of the diffusion of $4,000 copies of your able
speech in the Tribune. This is a sort Of advant-
| age which y0c1 party never concede to mine.
| have dozen times this season answered articles
from your side, quoting them in full; but no arti
Gle of mine, setting forth. the Wing position and
policy the Tariff has ever yet been transferred
to locofQco paper, even when labored attempts
have been made to answer it, Only last week, Mr.
Webster expressed at Albany his hope that would
answer certain alleged &c Facts for Farmers-dedi-
Gated to Horace Greely." He was not aware that
had patiently and fully answered those very stats-
tics when they first saw the light in the Journal of
Commerce; and that the Journal nor any other pa
per ever attempted to dispute the statements with
which confuted them. My answer went unnoti-
ced by your side, because it could not be overborne
but the misstatements which it exposed were put
in handful, as though they had never been ques-
Homeland sent all the State, thick as forest
leaves. This is fair sample of the way the two
parties, respectively, carry on the contest.
And let me say here, Mr.. Wright, that it seems
to that you take hold of this Tariff question as
though you were inclined or impelled to belitt,e it
to give the impression that we have all been
6ercely battling these thirty or forty years for
whim, a verbal distinction-iust nothing at ALL
Havewe really been natural fools all this time? Is
there in truth no difference between Webster and
Calhoun, between Clay and Polk, between Barnard
and Wright, on the Tariff? All yes, sir! there IS
great, vital difference between us We have
not been convulsing and at times nearly dissovng
| the Union, for chimera-a barren abstraction
The Tariff question is the question of the day
deeper, broader, more momentous, than any, than
! all other questions which divide and agitate the
country. Let US treat it such then, and not en-
deavor to mystiiy or sink it. 1t cannot be obscur
ed by all the mist that be raised by the night
est or the subtlest among us. We may shroud our
selves but not it. ..a f. saajgso.s ss
You tell your hearers and readers that the Free
Traders of this country not really Free Trade
men, though they call themselves so,-that the
term Free Trade at first startled and alarmed
vou-but that, on applying to those who assumed
l., you were tranqulliZed with the assurance that
they did not mean by Free Trade the entire aboli-
ton of our Tariff, but only having the trade of
the country as free it be kept, and raise the
revenue necessary to support the Government
This, it appears, pacifed you: and must say you
were easily scothed. You say:
"Free Trade necessarily implies the entire alb.
of duties, and have not yet met the first man
in public life in this Union, who will admit in
versation that he is in favor of such principle"
Now, cannot say how men differ in converse
tion from their public teachings, but know that
there has been very able pamphlet published at
the Plebean Office in this city, and widely COM
mended in the journals of your party, which argues
forcibly against all Duties and Custom Houses, de-
claring that they enable the rich to escape their fair
share of the public burthens, and insists that all
revenue should be raised by direct taxes. know
there are many honest and able men of your party
in this city who advocate this doctrine And it
seems to me the plainest thing in the world that
if your doctrines sound. these men are entirely
right For if protection to home labor be not
papable and positive good-f every duty is bur-
then on the community and a tax on the consumer
of the article on which it is levied-then deny
the rghtfulness of Tariffs altogether. see clearly
that they Cypress the poor and fasten labor the
burthens which should be borne by wealth. If a
tariff does not benefit the general industry of the
country by its protective efficacy, then it is most
| unequal and unjust mode of raising revenue, and
ought to be abolished. If revenue is TO be the sole
object and effect, protest against raising it in such
q way as to tax the rich miser actually less than
the poor day-laborer. IT, then, were any sort of
| a Free Trader, must be Of that very sort which
you contemplate with so much anxiety and alarm.
| But you tell US that you in favor Of dscrimi
nation in laying duties-that one uniform rate is
absurd---and that you would have tariff of une-
| quail duties, tthe main and principal object of
which should be revenue Here. them contin-
ues your reported speech, Is an explanation OF
what Mr.. Wright meant by Protective Tariff,
and ,caat his Southern friends meant By Free
Trade. Where, then, soas the DIFFERENCE be-
tsceen us?!!! Where, indeedi
'Gentle shepherd, tell Us wheree
concede the point at once. What you call a
Protective Tariff, and your Southern friend so
| alarming styled Free Trade. are as alike as two
peas--as like as Silas Wright and the u s. Sena-
tor from St. Lawrence Co, There cannot be two
things more alike than what you choose for the
present to call Protection and what your Southern
friend more bunty commended as Free Trade.
But there is another and very different thing
which you say your Southern friend understood by
Protection-namely, tariff Of duties imposed not
to raise Revenue for the Treasury, but purely and
simply to protect certain favorte and particular in
terests, to the prejudice of Others
Hon. Silas! arprehend you have here put in a
good many words that your southern friend never
used, with view not so much to explain his posi-
ton as to garnish and fortify your own. The
purely and simply favorite and particulars, and
to the prejudice Of Others l will be bound were
not in his observation; for Southern Free Trade
men do not feel obliged to talk in this way, and
they never do it, any more than they call Free
Trade Protective Tariff They say what you are
driving at here in half the words you take, and
am confident your southern friend did so. Recol-
lect and say If he did not!
You mean to say here that when higher duty
is laid on any imported article than that which