Southern standard. [volume] (Columbus, Miss.) 1851-1856, 1851-03-29

re- This third party project is likely to have
some advocates beyond the neighborhood of thi,
county. Here are solae remarks by our old friend
Van Pelt, of the Memphis dPpeol, than whom
there is more sagacious or able man connected
with the press in the State of Tennessee.
Read his deliberate opinions. Are they the
thoughts of poor miserable, pulling submis
sionist /?
Taxing Manufactures of other States.
In view of the injustice and uncharitableness
continually manifestng itself at the North against
the South, its domestic institutions and interests
as means of promoting the independence of the
latter section, in requtal of the great Joy recently
manifested in the former in the hope that the cotton
culture would become comparatively valueless by
false rumor that experiments had been made in
England, demonstrating the capability of manu-
featuring flax by machinery now used for manu-
featuring cotton, and hence causing flax grown to
any amount there to supply the place of cotton
and to teach our northern brethren more respect
for our rights and interests through means of the
almighty dollar, we say, in view of all these
considerations would it not be well for other States
to follow the example of North Carolina and tax
most likely to produce the desired result? To do
this they have constitutional right ad in,fnituna
and to any amount, as settled by many judicial
decisions
An article, No 80 in the "Federalist'' by AL
exander Hamilton, reads as follows:
g Although | am of opinion that there would
be no real danger of the consequences to the State
Governments which seem to be apprehended from
a power in the Union to control them in the levIes
of money; because [ am persuaded that the sense
of the people, the extreme hazard of provoking
the of tho
conviction of the utility and necessity of local adj
for local purposes, would be COM
plete barrier against the oppressive use of such a
power; yet am willing here to allow, in its full
extent, the business of the reasoning which re-
quires that the individual States should possess an
Independent and uncomfortable authority to raise
their own revenues for the supply of their own
wants. And making this concession | affirm, that
with the sole exception of duties on imports and
erports) they would, under the plan of the con-
venton, retain that authority in the most absolute
and unqualified sense; and that an attempt on the
part OF the national government to abridge them
in the exercise of it, would be violent assumption
of power, unwarranted by any article or clause of
its constitution. -
After speaking Of several cases where there
might be concurrent jurisdiction between the Gen
eral and State Governments, he says:
{" A case which might be thought to resemble
the latter but which is in fact widely different af
fects the question Immediately under consideration.
l mean the power of imposing taxes on articles
other than exports and imports. This | contend,
Is manItestly concurrent and coequal authority in
the United States and in the individual States
There is plainly no expression in the granting
clause, which makes that power erclusipe in the
Union. There is no independent clause or SEN
ence which prohibits the States from exercising it.
So tar is this from being the case, that plain and
conclusive argument to the contrary is deducible,
from the restraint laid upon the States in relation to
duties on imports and exports. This restriction
implies admission, that if it were not inserted
The States would possess the power it excludes
and 1t implies further admission, that to all
other taxes, the authorities of the States remain
In any other view it would be both
and dangerous"
The Supreme Court of Mississippi has decided
n the of Harrison as. The Mayor and City
Council of Vicksburg-see Smedes and Marshall's
Reports, 581,-that tax imposed by the city of
Nlcksburg, on the sales of produce imported by
he citizens of other States, and sold within the
limits of the city ''iS not import or duty' with
n the meaning of the Constitution of the United
States; and that when citizen Of Ohio comes In
to this State and makes sale of his merchandise
here, he must do so subject to the laws of this
State. ''This tax, " says the court, ''was not
or the privilege OF introducing the artcie, but was
tax the amount of sales. -
The North Carolina decision in the case of Wy
oyme as. Wright, LIST Dew. and Bait. Rep, p. 10,
he following statute was declared to be consti-
utional:
"That every person who shall peddle in any
county, goods not the growth or manufacture Of
he State, or any wooden clocks, or the machinery
Or materials thereof, which shall not be the manu-
acture of the State, jewelry, which machinery or
clock, shall be manufactured of materials, not of
5he growth, produce or manufacture of the State,
shall pay tax of twenty dollars -
The principle is the same if the tax had been laid
at one hundred or five hundred dollars, any
sum, in short. Suppose the aggrieved States after
'"peddle' should add the words cor sell by re-
tai,'' New York and Massachusetts,, who are a.
mong the foremost in this oppression of the South
would look rather blue, if in addition to wooden
clocks, &C., they should add shirtings, sheetihgs
musIins, cacoes, hats, boots, shoes, ready made
clothing, saddlery, DC, &C., &c. And for the
benefit of the Ohio abolitionists who are no whit
behind them in their hatred of the South and her
domestic institutions-indeed who steal five of our
negroes to their one, at the time literally fill
our markets with their products and manufactures,
suppose we should follow the example of Vicks
burg and 'tlay an ad ualorem tax to be levied up
on fiat boats keel boats and other water crafts
wherein flour beef, bacon, lard, furniture stone
and wooden hollow ware, besides many other arti
cles, such as onions, ca66dgeS and Sour-crOut may
be transported would they not look rather blue,
also, and rue the day they ever meddled with the
South or its institutions One would think so
for if there is one State in the Union where the
influence of ''the almighty dollar" is more keen