The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1860-01-19
the action of the Federal Government in rela

the action of the Federal Government in rela'
ton to Slavery.
But the sapient statesmen of South Carolina
lose sight of the fact that a Southern Confed-
eracy will have to be supported at an expense
to the South at least equal to that which she
bears as part of the present Union. The
question arises, how are the taxes to be raised
for the support of the Southern Confederacy?
Shall it be by direct and excise taxes, or by
imposts upon foreign merchandise? If by the
former, if entire free trade with all the world
is to be allowed, it is clear that the present in
cipient manufactures and mechanic arts of the
South must be abandoned. If England and
France and Germany, as well as New England,
are to be allowed to carry their goods into the
Southern ports free of duty, the manufacturing
establishments of Baltimore, of Richmond, of
Petersburg, of Wheeling, of Louisville, and the
hundreds of similar enterprises in all the South
ern States, will at once be broken down by for
eign competition The effect of absolute free
trade will be to reduce the South to the con-
dition of mere colonies, with no profitable in
vestments of capital except in the cultivation
of such products of the soil as can find a mar
ket in Europe. The lower counties of Mary
land, which are engaged in the production of
tobacco, might ike such an arrangement; but
what will Baltimore and the western counties
say to it? The western counties of Kentucky,
which produce tobacco, might be pleased at the
idea of free trade but what will the middle
and eastern counties say, which depend upon
Cincinnati and other Northern cities for a
market We might apply the same questions
as it respects Missouri, Tennessee, and North
Carolina. Not one citizen in hundred in these
States would be benefited in any respect by
free trade and dissolution of the Union; and
it would not be difficult to show that policy
which would be injurious to the great body of
the people would in the end be disastrous to
the planting interests.
A moments reflection upon these facts viii
convince the most inveterate free trader in
South Carolina, that whether in or out of the
Union, the States named can never be induced
to adopt the policy of resorting to direct taxes
as means of supporting Federal Govern
ment, to the neglect of imports.
we Will luoFelOfe dSSuLuc IL dS q uA6u 1acL,
that whether a member of the present Union,
or of Southern Confederacy, South Carolina
must continue to submit to a tariff. We be-
lieve that a Southern Confederacy would be
under the necessity of raising larger revenue,
per capita, than the South now pays to the Fed
eral Government. Southern politicians must
remember that the United States has less than
twenty thousand soldiers in its pay. Could a
Southern Confederacy make itself respected,
and protect its long line of frontier with less
number? We think not. Indeed, it is proba
BILE that the South, if under a separate Gov
eminent, would be compelled by its fears, if
not by its absolute necessities, to keep up a
large standing army, somewhat ON the Euro
pean scale, at a cost of forty or fifty millions
of dollars per annum. Such an item of ex-
penditure with the other burdens ofGovernment
on similar scale, would entail upon the South
ern Confederacy system of taxes never known
in this country, not even during the wars with
England for political and commercial indie
pendeRce.