Year: 1861

The Southern Congress---Free Trade.


One of the most important, if not the
greatest, of all questions to be brought be-
fore the Southern Congress, will be the
question of taxation. Shall the Treasury of
the new confederacy be filled by direct or
indirect taxation? As a measure of taxa
ton alone, the latter method, whose prac-
tical application is by tariff of duties on
imports, recommends itself by the couside-
ration that the tax is included in the price
of the imported commodity when it is sold,
and eluding observation, is more willingly
borne by the people. If the object of gov
ernments was to raise money, the scheme
that would enable them to extort the most
out of the people ought perhaps to obtain
the preference over all others. But since
it is or ought to be the object Of every peo-
pie to have the public business of the coun-
try transacted as cheaply as may be consis.
tent with the respectability and dignity of
their government, the method of taxation
that reveals to them most faithfully and
promptly the true cost of the government,
and the real source from whence the taxes
are drawn, should certainly command their
preference. If it is concealed from the
view of the mass of the people that the
twenty millions or fifty millions of revenue
that flow annually into the public treasury
are actually drawn from their pockets, the
effect is that you have no class of conscious
tax payers; and as necessary consequence,
you will have, as i'll the Congress of the u
uited States, no representatives of that class
no champions of economy and low duties
no advocates for simple and cheap gov
ernment On the contrary, the representa-
tive men like those in the Congress of the
United States, will be the representatives
of monopolists, of dependents upon govern
ment bouuties, of contractors, candidates
for profitable jobs, and eager hunters after
places of pecuniary value.


By direct taxation, on the contrary, the
great majority of voters are bound together
by the ties of common interest; and &C.
tuated alike by considerations Of self-inter-
est, they will elect as their representatives,
the advocates of simplicity and frugality in
the government. Nor is this all. In a con-
federation such as the late one, and such as
we are about again to form, the industrial
pursuits will differ in different States and
as it has so often been clearly demonstrated,
the agricultural and exporting industry Of
one State is taxed to give bounty to the
manufacturing industry of another. This
is great inequality. But what is more o.
dious still, is the inequality that this mode
of taxation produces between the rich and
the poor. Duties on imported goods are q
tax on income, because the taxed goods are
all consumed Hence it follows that the
poor man, with an estate valued at $1,000,
if he spend 5000 annually in imported
goods, bought chiefly with the wages of his
labor, under tariff of 20 per cent. duty,
would pay 40 per cent. taxes, or 4 per cent
on the value Of this property; while man
of large wealth, with an estate Of the value
of 100000 for example, even if he spend
the large sum Of $4,000 in taxed goods,
would pay but $4,000, or about 10 cents
per cent. on the value of his property. The
obvious impossibility, then, Of establishing
anything like equality in this method o1
taxation is, of itself, sufficient to condemn
it in the estimation of all honest Legislators
those who sincerely desire the equal dis
tribution of the burthens and benefits of gov
ernment amongst the people.


In the case of the new Southern Confed
eracy, the principle of perfect free trade
with all the world, and of direct taxes fo
the support of government, recommend
itself by new and peculiar considerations o
the greatest weight


By offering to England, France and 9th
er European powers the extraordinary priv
ilege of introducing their manufactures a
mong us free of all duty, you hold out th'
!. STRONGEST nossible inducement for our imme