Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1847-06-30

ties and allowances IN the year lS4ls but,
Ito put on a tax, is easy; TO get 1t off is hard;
and SO it has been with the salt tax, and oil
the burdens it carries with it. Though
revived for war of three years. they
survive as burden for thirty years; and
though now greatly reduced in the tax,
very little reduced in the burden, and be-:
come an absolute menstrosity form vicious
legislation. Thus: when the tax was re-
duced to twenty per centum ON the value,
the bounty ON picked fish exported, was
reduced in the same proportion, and that
was. regular; but the allowances on dried
FISH exaoesed were not toucheds and there.
Law the trick! and pretty picEIe II
the people of the United States in! all taxed
on their salt to raise revenue for one branch
of fishermen! and not raising enough in
that way, taxed half as much more in other
comforts and necessaries. The secret of
the continuance was this: picked fish are
chiefly 'mackerel, and consumed in the
United States, and only about four or five
thousand dollars year paid in bounties up.
on them: dried fish are chiefly cod, and lar
the largest branch of the fisheries; and on
these about three hundred thousand dollars
q year-some years as high as $3.50, 900.
in allowances were paid. Now, when
the new tariff bill came to be passed, the
bounties were reduced correspondingly, on
pickled fish exported, but not reduced at all
on dried fish! that is, they. were reduced,
very conscientiously, upon the insignificant
item of 1000, and left in full magnitude
upon the large sum of $500, 600 The
new tax was only computed to yield about
200, 900 dollars-he had not seen It's exact
product-but assuming it at the treasury
estimate of 100000, it would take the
whole and about half as much more, opay
the allowances in lieu Of drawback, 10 that
branch of the fishermen engaged in the cod,
or bank fisheries And this they now
receive, and will continue to receive until
the tariff act of the last year is altered in
that particular. -.
This is the solution of the enigma
salt tax on q nation of twenty millions OF
people, and nation of some hundred
millions of horses, cattle, mules, sheep and
hogs, oil became private revenue to n
few thousand individuals, with half as much
more added to it. Let no one, in Missouri,
in the innocent simplicity and downright
integrity Of his heart, suppose Tor an instant
that this monstrocity was the effect OF lgnor-
ance, inadvertence, neglect, OF accident on
the part of Congress. No such thing.
| All was perfectly understood from l1o9 to
the present day. But the anti-tariff repre-
sentatves of the cod fish interest would not
| vote for the new bill, unless they saved all
their allowances: the new tariff could not
pass without their votes; and thus the
100000 now annually paid to the cod
fisheries became the price OF the votes which
passed the last tariff bill. Against all this,
he (Mr. B. struggled at the time; and will
continue to Struggle while the enormity
existed and he had power to combat it. Il
Col. B. turned to subject OF great
interest to the people Of Missouri, and justly
so. He alluded to the improvement OF their
great rivers. This was the established pol
lev of all branches of the government now,
though unhappily suspended and baked tor
q while. The suspension was no condem-
nation of the policy, but the effect OF vicious
legislation local objects with ma
tional measures-putting small streams
into the same bill with such rivers as the
Missouri and the Mississippi, and harbors
which never harbored any thing but their
owners interest, or local trade, with the
real harbors which shelter the commerce,
and ships, and steamboats, OF nation.-
The policy was not abandoned. ;Ihe fault
of the suspension should not rest upon the
President but on the members OF Congress
who, negligently, or sinistrously, permit
local objects to be mixed up with national
ones in the same bill, and thus force the
national to carry the local, or ali sink to-
gether. There is where the fault lay, and
that is the point at which the constituent
should observe the conduct of his represen-
tative.
Cob B. had long been an advocate for
the improvement of our great western
rivers. Above 90 years ago, and when
fresher from the classics and from his ko-
man reading than ut present, he had
characterized the Mississippi in the Senate
as the Romans did their Mediterranean sea
Mare aostran was tho term he applied to
il. in allusion to the sea which divided the
earth in the middle, and. saw one flag wave
over it all. The Mississippi, like that sea,
divided our land In the middle, and win Inc
help of steam and its tributaries, afforaeo
as much navigation as the Mediterranean,
and collected oil its waters, and rolled all
its floods under the single flag Of the Amerl-
can Union. He calledit Our SEA, but
without the slightest suspicion that he was
making it into a sea or altering clausein
the constitution of the United States. A
short time ago convention-he believed
II was called a river convention--assembled
~ Memphis: it made the discovery that
mare nostram was nota mere figure OF
speech, but a reality: that what were
formerly only rivers, had expanded into
seas-inland seas-and that the constitution,
accommodating instrument, like that
miraculous tent in the Arabian Nights, so
onpressible that it might be squeezed INTO
the grasp Of one shut hand, and so expansi-
BE that it could spread over the whole
encampment of On orie htal army, had ex-
banded also to cover the length and breath
Of the new seal, and that now, these i'm
provements were perfectly constitutional,
in the same river, under the name OF "sn-
land ;sea,'' which were perfectly unconstl-
tutional under its own name, or under the
classic establishment Of mare nostram, or
the equally classic, and still more appro-