Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-02-20

strsints as well as fpswsrs Z. does 9ot rely on
serve the interests Of all the Ststes. 1t Is found
ed in Wholesome and strenuous Jealousy, which
| foreseefng the possibility Of mischief. guards
with eolicitude against avn exercise OF power
1 which may eEaanger the State as far as it Is
/ practicable. If this provision as to uniformity
| Of duties had been 0nmitted, althou gh the pow
| er might not have been abused to the Injury Of
| the teebler states Of the Union, "a presumption
which history does not justify us in deeming
quite safe or certain) yet it would of itself have
been sufficient to demolish in q practical sense
the value of the most of the other restrictive
clauses in the Constitution. New York and
Pennsylyauia might by an easy combination
with the Southern States have destroyed the
whole navigation Of New England A combina-
ton of different character between New Eng
land and the Western States might have borne
down the agriculture of the South; and a com
bination Of a yet different character might have
struck, at the vital interests of manufactures.
Soathat thegeneral propriety Of this clause is es-
tablislIed by its intrisic political wisdom as well
by its tendency to quiet alarms and suppress
discontents. Constitution, sec. 957.
Every sentence is big with significance.
Mark, there were to be no s'unnue prefer
ences" affecting common interests" 'sno
oppressive inequalities vitality affecting the
pursuits and employments of the people of
the different States;;" no combinations to
build up one industry "upon the ruins OF
another" all sschecks and restraints the
absence Of the rule Sufficient to demolish
the other restrictive clauses of the Con-
stitution;" and by way of illustrating the
abuse Of the rule, "a combination between
New England and the Western States might
have borne down the agriculture of the
South" prophecy fulfilled 1.-THE cotton
tax. ALI special pleading, however ingen-
ious, will be futile in its assaults upon these
bulwsrk provisions of the Constitution,
which tower in monumental grandeur about
US.
New England never would have adopted
the Constitution if she had even dream ed
that either her fishing or her manufacturing
interests might have been singled out and
taxed under the uniformity rule, other sec
tions and industries not taxed. Virginia,
North Carolina, and South Carolina never
would have agreed to it if they had thought
their tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton Gf
they had grown it then) might have been
singled out and taxed under the uniformity
rule; never. ssxs --.--... s-s r. s--...s
The whole bent of the Constitution was
TO prevent that thing. Why, fsuch doc
trine were conceded, Congress, impelled by
sectional rancor or avarice, might lay a tax
on the cotton region until it was CALLED and
ground to bankruptcy, then lift it and place
it on the sugar region, and when that ID
ground and CALLED lift it and replace. it on
the Tesuscitated cotton region, and when it
is ground and CALLED again; lift it and re-
place it on the resuscitated sugar region,
| and thus, iu turn, making the tax fly from
one to the other like weaveT's shuttle,
weaving web of prosperity for one Sec
ton and fsying the other bare and to the
bone.
shall never believe that the trainers of
the Constitution intended any sHch thing.
could as soon believe that the Constitu-
ton was crater with its bowels gorged
with fires of mischief, ready to he emptied
upon a trembling people. Ifsuch a doc
trine be true, then the people of the South
are out in open political commons, unshel-
tered by the Constitution against any storm
ofpunitive vengeance which may beat upon
them.
Suppose the South and West were to
unite and propose to repeal all duties on
foreign goods, throw our ports open to the
| free commerce of the world, then levy a
tax under the uniformity rule of three
cents per yard on all our cotton manufAc!
lures, and twenty cents per pound on all the
blubber taken by American whalemen, there
is not single New England member who
would vote for il. / would as soon expect
to see one of their granite hills move from
| its base as to see such vote. Read the
fate of the South in the example.
In the face of all this shall we be told
that the producer recovered his tax by add
ing it to his sales in the foreign market?
This begs the question. | am speaking of
the operations of the law and not of The
contingent operations of the citizen. The
| law was fierce in its activity in gathering
| the tax, and then t became Indifferent to
| the fate of the producer. The Government
is convicted by its own record that the tax
could never return to the producers. The
| Government knew that the American man
ufacturers could never pluck the cotton tax
| from the teeth of foreign competition, and
| it restored the tax to them by drawbacks.
| The Government knew that the same horn
which would have gored them was sure to
| gore the producer. The producer could in
demnify himself only by having monopoly
| of the market, and the power OF forcing the
purchaser to buy with the supsrvening tax.
| This neither he nor Congress could do, as
| it would involve the control of the cotton
| market of the world.
i England had gone ahead and secured this
| supremacy By her contrivance and enter
prise. Liverpool is the cotton Olympus,
and its bulletins are fats to the world.
| That her vast textile industry might not
become the victim of surprise, her 'Cotton
Supply Association" was organized in 1857,
out Of which arose the Manchester Cot
ton Company" in 1880, whose designs
were to procure and stimulate the growth
of cotton in India, Egypt, Italy, China
and Australia. Under its auspices cotton
has not only increased in production, but
improved in quality. The Australian cot
| ton is said now to be equal to the Ameri-
can. And through the providence OF this
company from five to eight hundred thous-
ands bales of cotton are kept in store in
advance of the annual consumption OF the
English mills, so that she can guard against
the blight Of the seasons, the Interruptions
of commerce by war, and prevent the price
being sprung upon her by the arts of spec
| ulstiOn.
As evidence of this, since the organiza-
ton of the Supply Association in 1857, the
! United Kingdom has annually exported
large quantities of her redundant supply of
cotton, as shown by the following sta
| tistics.
1 Raw cotton exported from the United Kingdom,
as per tabular statement of "The Statesman's
Year Book" for 1872, p. 257.
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