Year: 1862




history, discuss the operations of a high protec-
tive tariff? Need stop TO show Its folly and its
injustice! No sir. 1t is one of the settled ques-
tions of governmental policy. Twenty years ago
it was fairly tried, and the American people
passed an intelligent verdict of condemnation
against it. 1t was fully heard by greater advo-
Gates than it has to-day, and repudiated as an
unfair and ruinous system. If any question was
ever in the history of this Government, distinct
ly tried before a tribunal of the people and con-
demned, it was the question of protective Ia
riff. The country prospered by Its reputation,
and the laborer bought where his money would
buy most. But this issue has again risen, and
in shape more offensive and injurious TO the
true interests ofthe country than before. The
present tariff is one which no party in the past
would have sanctioned. Ii would have alarmed
the old Whig party much as any other by its
stringent and prohibitory features. 1t goes far
beyond what was deemed wise or prudent by the
strongest protectionists of former high tariff pc
riods. And now allow me to state some of its
specific practical operations as a part of the
financial policy of the present hour.


1t forces the laboring man, the consumer, the
farming classes generally, to pay for manufac-
tured articles, which embrace large portion of
the necessities of life, an increased price over
their proper value and over that for which they
can elsewhere be bought of from forty to one
hundred per cent. Thus tax of most fearful
rate is levied on one branch of industry, not to
support the Government, but to contribute as a
gratuitOus donation to a privileged and favored
business That is the first extortionate species
of taxation which meets us in the examination
of this subject. 1t is one which at any time
would fall with oppressive cruelty on large ma
iority of the loyal people of the country: but at
a time like this, when the Government itself is
claiming almost the entire substance of the land
for its maintenance, no language can be found
sufficiently strong with which to characterize the
enormity of such policy.


In the next place, the present tariff robs the
Government of much-needed revenue by keep
ing imported goods from our shores. Under its
operations during the past year, according to a
statement made few weeks since in the British
Parliament by the Chancellor of the English EX-
chequer, our importations from Great Britain
alone have fallen off to the amount of SIS 900, ,OOO
The report on the finances of our own Govern
ment for the year ending June 80, 1861, shows a
loss in our receipts arising from customs during
the first three months after this tariff went into
operation of over ten millions of dollars as COM
pared with the receipts during a similar period
year previous. Under the tariff of 1876, rev.
enue to support the Government was sought by
liberal terms of trade with foreign nations. and
richly obtained. The rule is reversed, and
for the unworthy purpose of protecting a class
of business which ought to sustain itself or be
abandoned, this great fountain of pecuniary sup
port to the nation is dried up. 1t no longerfows
into the Treasury, and the money which is thus
diverted from the public to private and individ-
ual benefit, has to be replaced under this Admin
istration by direct and specific taxes on the peo-
pie. Thus taxation grows and augments its
alarming proportions in order that the interests
of favored few may be cherished and pro-
NOTED.


But the manner in which this taxation is to
be levied and in which it is to affect the differ
ent interests of the country exceeds all the pre-
ceding features of criminal outrage on those who
live by producing from the soil. By the provi-
sions of the tax bill which recently passed this
House a tax of three per cent. Gd cdIOrem is laid
upon all articles of manufacture in the hands of
the manufacturer. 1t is estimated that there will
thus be raised S50,OOOOOO of the annual income
arising from taxation. This the manufacturing
interest is TO pay for the support of the Govern
ment, and the airs of patriotism which are as
sumed in consequence are eminentlv characters
tic But inasmuch as this manufacturing inter
est is guarded by Morrill, tariff from all CON-
petition in selling, and strictly protected in in
creasng Its prices of sale to its forced customers
to an almost unlimited extent, viii any one, in
his simplicity, pretend that the three per cent
wherewith it is taxed, the S5O,OOO,O 900 which it
has to pay, will not be charged up to the buyer
when Its goods are sold? The tariff and taxa
ton are kindred measures, born of a common orr
gin, and like leashed hounds hunt for their inno-
centprey coupedt together. The tariff stands guard
over the interests of the manufacturer while tax
alton hunts for every other substance in the land
on which to fasten its fangs. And If, for the
sake of appearance, the manufacturing interest
is mentioned in tax bill, the tariff steps forward
and enables Its cherished friends to recover back
every dollar which they are assessed by raising
the price of the wooden cloths, the linens the
muslins, the calicoes, the plowshares, and the i'm
plements of husbandry and the articles of daily
necessity which the American GOvernmentforces
its citizens TO buy Of its protected monOpolists.
This is the elimination, the climax of wrong. A
Government which plumbers one citizen TO enrich
another needs the strong, stern hand of reform on
its helm.


Though perfect equality should prevail in
meeting the immense taxation which is coming
like mountain avalanche upon this people, vet
it will be born amid sorrow and weary pain but
when it shall all fall virtually on given class of
citizens it will become an intolerable suffocating
nightmare of ruin and of death. / challenge the
attention of the country that such is the work
ing of the present system, which it is pretended
has been adopted for the support of the Govern
ment Already we see Its effects. The great
manufacturing corporations of the East are
crowding their bloaded pockets with rapid and
gigantic gains. Their dividends of profits are
swollen some thirty, some sixty, and some an
hundred fold This is random statement, but
is sustained by the statistics before me. 1t is a
fact, too, of which the whole country has taken
cognizance.


Sir, no sectional boundaries to nv love of
country prompts these remarks. call God TO
witness with what devotion love every sod and
rock and river, mountain, prairie, and forest of
nv native land. For its happiness and glory it
would be sweet and honorable to die. j reckon
no section of it above another 1t is all alike 20
me, all dear and hallowed by the principles of
constitutional liberty. But speak in the name
of Justice, which is everywhere present, in the
name of fraternal and American equality, and l
ask you, / implore you, to look at the condition
of the Western people. Their interests have
been abandoned on this floor by more than half
their Representatives, and they stand to-day
bearing the hard brunt of the pitless storm which
has burst from the angry sky. They are shut
out from all the fair markets for their produce
Their natural channels of trade to the South are
closed by the impious hand of war and their
avenues to the markets of the North are OBJ
structed by the avarice of railroads. 1t costs
sixtv cents to freight bushel of corn from the
Wabash river 10 New York, and leaves from
seven to fourteen cents to the farmer, who has
caused it to grow and gathered it in, as the
ward of his toll. For everything else he receives
the same beggarly return. And vet who has
lifted up his voice here in behalf of that great,
that honest and oppressed peoples Where is
their representative in the Committee of Ways
and Means, that great despotic committee which
natures measures of tariff, of taxation, and of
finance, and whose DEGREES on this floor are
unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Per-
siansl On that committee, which speaks the
voice of fate for the veal or woe of the taN-pav-