SPEECH 
 
 il 
 
 HON, SIMON CAMERON, OF PA, 
 
 THE REDUCTION OF THE TARIFF OF 1842: 
 
 m THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JULY -22, 1846. 
 
 WASHINGTON': 
 PRINTED BY RITCHIE & HEISS, 
 
 
 184& 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Mr. President : I feel no little reluctance in addressing the Senate on this 
 subject. If my own feelings were consulted, I should certainly prefer to be 
 silent, and to leave to others more able, more eloquent, and more experienced 
 in debate, the task of exposing the inconsistencies, and follies, and the ruinous 
 effects of the measure now before the Senate. Enough has indeed been al¬ 
 ready said to prevent its passage, if truth were to prevail; and I am in strong 
 hopes that it will yet be defeated ; for it seems now so poor, that there is none to 
 do it reverence—not one to raise his voice in its favor. But I cannot suffer a 
 vote to be taken till I have expressed my hostility to its passage, and said some¬ 
 thing in defence of the industry of my State, which it is calculated to ruin. 
 
 I come here the representative of a State deeply interested in the develop¬ 
 ment of her resources, and in fostering and protecting the industry of her 
 citizens : a State which has expended more than one hundred and fifty mil¬ 
 lions of dollars in making those resources available; a State which in two 
 wars has expended more blood and more treasure in the common defence than 
 any State in the Union; a State which has never asked any favors from the 
 Union, and which has received as little benefit from it as anyone in it;—even 
 the fort which was built for the defence of her city, with the money of her own 
 citizens, has been suffered to go to decay by the general government;—a State 
 proverbial for the democracy of her sons—so much so that no democratic 
 President was ever elected without her vote; nay, one which never gave a vote 
 against a democratic candidate for the presidency, until she believed there was 
 a settled design to desert her dearly cherished interests. 
 
 You can, therefore, Mr. President, imagine my surprise when I find our time- 
 honored commonwealth charged with a w'ant of democracy in her opposition 
 to this bill. From one end of her wide domain to the other she does oppose 
 it; and if I fail to show that she has abundant cause, it will not be for the want 
 of defects in the bill itself. So far as she is concerned, it can produce evil, and 
 
 The support of a system of protection for the labor of her citizens is with 
 her not new. It is a lesson she learned from the fathers of the republic, and 
 which was practised with uniform and unvarying consistency by all her early 
 settlers. Her sons have not, and I trust in God will never prove recreant to the 
 wholesome lessons of their ancestry. It is to this practice and to these lessons 
 that she owes her present prosperity and fame. 
 
 Go where you will, there is but one sentiment now pervading the public 
 mind on this subject. It has grown with her growth, and strengthened with 
 her strength; and there is a cry coming up now from all her borders, echoed 
 from every hill and from every valley; from her very bowels, as you saw the 
 other day, by the petition which I presented from her hardy miners, whose 
 habitations are under ground: from every village, from every work-shop, from 
 every farm-house is the cry heard, invoking us to interpose between them and 
 ruin. Every legislature for years has instructed her representatives here to ad¬ 
 here to her favorite policy; and no man has ever presumed to ask her favor 
 without admitting the justice and propriety of her views upon this subject; and 
 
4 
 
 I may add, Mr. President, woe betide the man who raises his suicidal hand against 
 her, now in the hour of her extremity. 
 
 I have said her favor was never asked without a pledge to support her views. 
 You know, sir, how it was in 1844. I need not tell you that you would not 
 now occupy that chair but for the assurances—the oft reiterated assurances— 
 that her policy would not be disturbed. You and I remember the scenes of 
 that day. We cannot forget the flags and banners which were carried in the 
 processions of her democracy, pending the election which resulted in the tri¬ 
 umph of our party. It cannot, and it ought not to be disguised, that, but for 
 these assurances to which I have alluded, that triumph never would have been 
 obtained. I remember the anxiety which pervaded the minds of the politicians 
 until the publication of the Kane letter, and I cannot forget the pains that were 
 taken by the leading men of the party to convince the people that it was evi¬ 
 dence of an intention to protect our interests. Her confiding citizens gave 
 their support in good faith, and they expected good faith in return. The letter 
 was published, in English and German, in every democratic paper in the State, 
 and in pamphlets by thousands. Every democrat pointed to it as a satisfactory 
 tariff letter, and no democrat doubted it. It is not saying too much to ascribe 
 to that letter, mainly, the democratic majority of the State. Surely, honorable 
 men will not now, since the battle has been fought and the honors won by it, 
 evade its responsibility, by saying that too liberal a construction was put upon 
 it. If it was wrongly applied, there was time enough for its contradiction be¬ 
 tween the time of its publication and the election. The party majority in this 
 hall may be fairly attributed to that letter; and I ask honorable Senators if they 
 expect that majority can be retained if this bill shall become a law ? I warn 
 them now of the sudden and swift destruction which awaits us, if Punic faith 
 is to govern the counsels of the democratic party. It is to avert what I believe 
 would be a dire calamity—the prostration of democratic principles—that I raise 
 my voice to arrest the further progress of this bill. 
 
 It would be needless to take up the doctrine of protection to defend it, if it 
 were not for the disposition recently manifested to ape every thing British, and 
 to shape our legislation to suit the subjects of the British crown. A new order 
 of democracy seems, however, to have arisen in these latter days; and for the 
 especial benefit of its high priests I will read the opinions of the founders of 
 the republic who participated in public affairs from the foundation of the gov¬ 
 ernment—who framed its fundamental law—and who fought its battles in the 
 Revolution and the last war. The people of Pennsylvania still have confidence 
 in the democracy of those pure and great men; and time was when they were 
 considered as the pillars of the democracy of the Union. 
 
 “ A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well- 
 digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote suclt 
 manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, 
 supplies.” 
 
 “ The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, by all proper means, will not, 1 
 trust, need recommendation.'” 
 
 Extract of a speech of George Washington, President of the United Stales, to Congress, December 
 7, 1796. 
 
 “ Congress have repeatedly, and not without success, directed their attention to the encourage¬ 
 ment of manufactures. The object is of too much consequence not to insure a continuance of 
 their efforts in every way which shall appear eligible.” 
 
 Extract of a speech of John Mams, President of the United Stales, to Congress, November 22,1800. 
 “ The manufacture of arms within the United States still invites the attention of the national 
 
6 
 
 of useful manufactures, more especially in the general application to household fabrics, wc behold 
 a rapid diminution of our dependance on foreign supplies. Nor is it unworthy of reflection that 
 this revolution in our pursuits and habits is in no slight degree a consequence of those impolitic 
 and arbitrary edicts by which the contending nations, in endeavoring each of them to obstruct out¬ 
 trade with the other, have so far abridged our means of procuring the productions and manufac¬ 
 tures of which our own are now taking the place.” 
 
 Extract of a message from James Madison, President of the United Stales, to Congress, Dec. 5, 1810. 
 
 “ I feel particular satisfaction in remarking that an interior view of our country presents us with 
 grateful proofs of its substantial and increasing prosperity. To a thriving agriculture, and the im¬ 
 provements related to it, ICff' is added a highly interesting extension of useful manufactures, the 
 combined product of professional occupations and of household industry. Such, indeed, is the 
 experience of economy, as well as of policy, in these substitutes for supplies heretofore obtained 
 by foreign commerce, that, in a national view, the change is justly regarded as of itself more than 
 a recompense for those privations and losses, resulting from foreign injustice, which furnished 
 the general impulse required for its accomplishment. How far it may be expedient to guard the 
 infancy of this improvement, in the distribution of labor, by regulations of the commercial tarilf, 
 is a subject which cannot fail to suggest itself to your patriotic reflections.” 
 
 Extract of a message from James Madison, President of the United Stales, to Congress, Air. 5, 1811. 
 
 “ Although other subjects will press more immediately on your deliberations, a portion of them 
 
 the success they have attained, and are still attaining, in some Igree 5 ; under the impulse of causes 
 not permanent. 
 
 “ Besides the reasonableness of saving our manufactures from sacrifices which a change 
 of circumstances might bring on them, the national interest requires that, with respect to such 
 articles at least as belong to our defence and our primary wants, we should not be left in unneces¬ 
 sary dependance on external supplies.” 
 
 Extract of a message from James Madison, President of the United Slates, to Congress, Dec. 7,1S13. 
 
 “If the war has increased the interruptions of our commerce, it has at the same time 
 |E==cherished and multiplied our manufactures, so as to make us independent of all other coun¬ 
 tries for the more essential branches, for which we ought to be dependant on none; and is even 
 rapidly giving them an extent which will create additional staples in our future intercourse with 
 foreign markets.” 
 
 Extract of ei message from James Madison, President of the United States, to Congress, Dec. 5,1815. 
 
 <C== “ In adjusting the duties on imports to the object of revenue, the influence of the tariff 
 on manufactures will necessarily present itself for consideration. However wise the theory may 
 be which leaves to the sagacity and interest of individuals the application of their industry and 
 resources, there are in this, as in other cases, exceptions to the general rule. Besides the condition, 
 which the theory ilself implies, of a reciprocal adoption by other nations, experience teaches that 
 so many circumstances must concur in introducing and maturing manufacturing establishments, 
 especially of the more complicated kinds, that a country may remain long without them, although 
 sufficiently advanced, and in some respects even peculiarly fitted for carrying them on with suc¬ 
 cess. Under circumstances giving a powerful impulse to manufacturing industry, it has made 
 among us a progress, and exhibited an efficiency, which justify the belief that, with a protection 
 not more than is due to the enterprising citizens whose interests arc non) at stake, it will become, at an 
 early day, not only safe against occasional competitions from abroad, but a source of domestic 
 wealth, and even of external commerce. In selecting the branches more especially entitled to 
 the public patronage, a preference is obviously claimed by such as will relieve the United States 
 from a dependance on foreign supplies, ever subject to casual failures, for articles necessary for 
 the public defence, or connected with the primary wants of individuals. It will be an additional 
 recommendation of particular manufactures, where the materials for them are extensively drawn 
 from our agriculture, and consequently impart and insure to that great fund of national pros¬ 
 perity and independence an encouragement which cannot fail to be rewarded." 
 
 I shall show, by the connexion between the agricultural and manufacturinn- 
 interests of Pennsylvania, how entirely applicable this view is to the present state 
 of things. 
 
 Extract of a message from James Madison, President of the United Stales, to Congress, December 3,1810. 
 
 “It is to be regretted that a depression is experienced by particular branches of our manufac- 
 exccss of imported merchandise, which carries a checil; in its own tendency, the° cause, in its 
 
Union, even of those most benefited by manufactures, requires that this subject should be touched 
 with the greatest caution, and a critical knowledge of the effect to be produced by the slightest change. 
 On full consideration of the subject, in all its relations, I am persuaded that a further augmenta¬ 
 tion may now be made of the duties on certain foreign articles, in favor of our. own, and without 
 affecting injuriously any other interest.” 
 
 Extract of a message from James Monroe, President of the United States, to Congress, December 2,1823. 
 
 “ Having communicated rny views to Congress, at the commencement of the last session, re¬ 
 specting the Iff” encouragement which ought to be given to our manufactures, and the principle on 
 which it should be founded, I have only to add that those views remain unchanged; and that the 
 present state of those countries with which we have the most immediate political relations and 
 greatest commercial intercourse tends to confirm them. Under this impression, jEJ* 1 recom¬ 
 mend a review of the tariff, for the purpose of affording such additional protection, to those arti¬ 
 cles which we are prepared to manufacture, or which are mors immediately, connected with the 
 defence and independence of the country.” 
 
 These words were the last remarks, given as a legacy, from the last of the 
 fathers of the Revolution; and, acting upon this wholesome counsel, Congress, 
 at that session, passed the bill known as the tariff of 1824. 
 
 I will now give the views on this subject of one who is confessedly the most 
 remarkable man of his age; one who, whatever difference of opinion may be 
 entertained with regard to some of his measures, is admitted by all to have 
 brought to the administration of the public affairs intrusted to his care as much 
 purity of purpose, and as strong patriotic feelings, as ever characterized any 
 public man: and it is not saying too much to add, that no public man, save only 
 the Father of his Country, enjoyed in a more remarkable degree the confidence 
 and regard of his countrymen. It will readily be understood that I allude to 
 General Jackson. In 1824 he addressed the following letter to several persons 
 who had written him on this subject: 
 
 Extract from General Jackson's letter to Dr. Coleman - 
 
 “You ask me my opinion on the tariff. I answer, that I am in favor of a judicious examina¬ 
 tion and revision of it; and so far as the tariff bill before us embraces the design of fostering, 
 protecting, and preserving within ourselves the means of national defence and independence, par¬ 
 ticularly in a state of war, I would advocate and support it. The experience of the late war 
 ought to teach us a lesson, and one never to be forgotten. If our liberty and republican form 
 of government, procured for us by our revolutionary fathers, are worth the blood and treasure at 
 which they were obtained, it surely is our duty to protect and defend them. Can there be an 
 American patriot, who saw the privations, dangers, and difficulties experienced for the want of 
 proper means of defence during the last war, wno would be willing again to hazard the safety of 
 our country, if embroiled; or to rest it for defence on the precarious means of national resource 
 to be derived from commerce in a state of war with a maritime power, who might destroy that 
 commerce to prevent us obtaining the means of defence, and thereby subdue us? I hope there is 
 not; and if there is, I am sure be does not deserve to enjoy the blessings of freedom. Heaven 
 smiled upon and gave us liberty and independence. That same Providence has blessed us 
 with the means of national independence and national defence. If we omit or refuse to use the 
 gifts which he has extended to us, we deserve not the continuation of his blessings. He has fill¬ 
 ed our mountains and our plains with minerals—with lead, iron, and copper—and given us cli¬ 
 mate and soil for the growing of hemp and wool. These being thegrand materials of our national 
 defence, they ought to have extended to them adequate and fair protection, that our own manu¬ 
 factories and laborers may be placed on a fair competition with those of Europe, and that we may 
 have within our country a supply of those leading and important articles so essential in war. 
 Beyond this I look at the tariff with an eye to the proper distribution of labor, and to revenue, 
 and with a view to discharge our national debt. I am one of those who do not believe that a na¬ 
 tional debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated 
 to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy, dangerous to the liberties of the coun¬ 
 try. This tariff—I mean a judicious one—possesses more fanciful than real danger. I will ask, 
 what is the real situation of the agriculturist? Where has the American farmer a market for his 
 surplus product? Except for cotton, he has neither a foreiga nor home market. Does not this 
 clearly prove,, when there is no market either at home or abroad, that there is too much labor 
 employed in agriculture, and that the channels for labor should be multiplied? Common sense 
 points out, at once,«the remedy. Draw from agriculture this superabundant labor; employ it in 
 mechanism and manufactures; thereby creating a home market for your bread-stuffs, and dis- 
 
I think, Mr. President, I have clearly established the democratic character of 
 a tariff for protection of American industry, by proofs of the most convincing 
 character. The authorities from which I have quoted have all been regarded as 
 the lights of the republic, and I envy not the man who would attempt to lessen 
 the weight of their opinions. 
 
 In recommending these views to Congress at different times, they but adopted 
 the views of every nation of the world that has been prosperous. No nation 
 ever flourished that did not take care of its own citizens, and develop its own 
 resources; but our modern philosophers seem to be “ wise above what is 
 
 In the olden lime, Mr. President, when democracy was certainly not less pure 
 than at present, revenue bills originated with the representatives of the people. 
 The fathers of the country even thought it wise, in forming the constitution, to 
 restrict their origin to the House of Representatives. Now, the representatives 
 of the people are saved all the trouble of reflecting upon the difficult subject of 
 revenue. The Secretary of the Treasury, like the first Lord of the Treasury in 
 England, makes a bill, and hands it to the chairman of the Committee on Finance 
 in the House. Cabinet ministers bring all their influence to bear, and, by the 
 aid of the previous question, force the bill through. 
 
 It is sent to the Senate, and some mysterious influence there prevents the bill 
 from being referred, and taking the ordinary course of all measures of this kind. 
 We are told that the interests of the democratic party require its immediate pas¬ 
 sage. Honorable Senators admit that it is not a good bill, but they cannot go 
 against the party. Such subservience to ministers would do credit to a British 
 House of Lords, but is, in my opinion, in bad keeping in an American Senate. 
 I am proud to call myself a democrat. I am the son of a democrat. I repre¬ 
 sent a State whose democracy no one will doubt; and, for one, I must object to 
 ‘his mode of fixing principles on the party. I was taught in early life to believe 
 
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 that the democratic party was the friend of the poor—of the laboring classes; 
 that its principles were calculated to elevate the masses; but the principles of 
 this southern democracy would rob the poor man of his labor, and make him 
 dependant on the capitalists of England for his scanty subsistence. Such was 
 not the doctrine of such democrats as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, or Jackson, 
 as I have fully shown. 
 
 It has been said that the tariff of 1842 is defective in many of its details. It 
 may be; but if so, why do not gentlemen point out these defects and suggest 
 remedies, without entirely destroying the principles upon which it is based ? 
 That law found the country in a state of unparalleled distress. Never, in a time 
 of profound peace, was there such utter ruin and dismay pervading the whole 
 country. Not individuals merely, not communities only, but whole States were 
 involved in the general bankruptcy: even the general government itself was 
 without credit, and without the means of carrying on its ordinary functions. 
 From the time the compromise act, whose principles are now attempted to be 
 re-enacted, began to take effect, the credit of the country began to sink. Time 
 only added to these difficulties instead of relieving them, until, at the end of Mr. 
 Van Buren’s administration, the government was many millions in debt. In 
 vain did her fiscal officers try to replenish the exhausted treasury. Her creditors 
 received in many instances only “ promises to pay and no one had courage 
 enough to invest in her loans, even at a discount. 
 
 The memorable rout of the democratic party in 1840, and the overthrow of 
 Mr. Van Buren’s administration, was the consequence of this state of things. 
 
 The individual cases of distress which pervaded the country for a period pre¬ 
 ceding the law of 1842 were absolutely heart-rending. Rich men not only lost 
 their fortunes, but poor men lost their means of living. Our furnaces and our 
 forges and our workshops were emptied ; our merchants were ruined, and our 
 farmers, our substantial yeomanry, many of them with abundance of products, 
 for want of a market, found themselves in the hands of the sheriff. Not a sec¬ 
 tion of the whole country but afforded abundant evidence of the truth of this 
 melancholy picture. You know, Mr. President, that this is no fancy sketch. 
 The dockets of your courts and the streets of your own city, and all the business 
 avenues of that noble commercial mart, could be appealed to for its truth. 
 
 I remember, and you doubtless know, that in the organization of a new court 
 in that city there were over five hundred applicants for the place of tip-stave. 
 Healthy, vigorous men sought this station, to get bread for their families. A 
 prominent democrat of Pennsylvania, alluding to the subject, uses the follow¬ 
 ing language, which fully corroborates all I have said: 
 
 “ All will recollect the condition of our country in 1840 and ’41. The political campaign and 
 the causes which controlled it must be fresh in remembrance. Such was the condition of the 
 productive classes, that an able statesman, though aided by all the patronage of the national and 
 most of the State governments, and sustained by an active and powerful party, which had never 
 been beaten, was hurled from the Presidential chair by an overwhelming torrent. How did this 
 happen ? It was no philosophical abstraction that occupied the public mind. The people of the 
 United Slates are essentially a practical, matter-of-fact people. The free trade system had been 
 gradually working since 1833, and was being felt in all its charms at the time of that election; a 
 deep gloom pervaded our land; it was visible in every countenance, and a single idea controlled 
 and determined the event. 1 Our condition can’t he worse—let vs have a change,’ was on the lips 
 of every one. Mr. Van Buren had not contributed to the fearful depression, but it had nearly 
 attained its climax at an unlucky day for him. Congress found the country, in 1842, in a most 
 deplorable condition of distress and despondency. Every man who was in any way connected 
 with productive industry will remember what a dark cloud preceded their action on the tariff in 
 that year, and we all know how soon confidence revived after the passage of the law; and all 
 have realized the growth and improvement of every pursuit in our country from that time to this.” 
 
 Do gentlemen desire these scenes renewed ? Will men never learn wisdom 
 from experience ? How is it now? How changed the scene ! If a magician’s 
 wand had been waved over the face of our country, the result would hardly have 
 appeared more like enchantment than the reality now before us. No man is 
 
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 idle, who is willing to work. Contented, smiling faces are every where to be 
 seen. The busy hum of industry gladdens the ear in all directions. Everybody 
 is prosperous and everybody is happy. 
 
 For the crop of the last year the farmers of Pennsylvania received a high 
 price. The prosperity of your city will be seen in the fact that a city has sprung 
 up, as if by magic, alongside of you, furnishing employment for shipping nearly 
 equal in amount to all the rest of your tonnage. At this new point are daily seen 
 more than 100 ships waiting for cargoes of coal. Our canals and our railroads 
 are crowded with business, and new improvements are springing up in every 
 quarter. Nearly all the States have restored their credit, and the United States 
 Treasury had, when the present Congress met, a surplus of many millions- 
 What has produced all this ? Shall a law that has conferred all these benefits 
 on the country be hastily thrown aside, and one adopted in its place which no 
 one is willing to father, and which no one will defend ; which, in its crude prin¬ 
 ciples and undigested details, shows its author to be wholly unacquainted with 
 the commercial, manufacturing, mechanical, or agricultural resources of the 
 country ? 
 
 I have already intimated what I believe will be the effects of this bill. I hope, 
 for the welfare of my country, that I may be mistaken; but if it be true that the 
 “ history of the past is but the prophecy of the future,” the result is too clearly 
 foreshadowed to admit of a doubt. Pass this bill, and the democratic party must 
 again be defeated and our opponents again triumph, and the policy of the country 
 will be unsettled for years. This, however, may be considered a minor consid¬ 
 eration compared with its disastrous effects upon every branch of trade and busi¬ 
 ness in the country. The lawyers may flourish and grow rich, for they prosper 
 by the distresses of other men. They may build up fortunes upon the ruined 
 estates of their fellow-citizens, and the hard-earned savings of the laboring man. 
 No other class of the community can derive any benefit from this bill of abomi¬ 
 nations. Now, Mr. President, allow me to ask, why shall this continual inter¬ 
 ference with the best interests of the country be pursued? and, especially, why 
 shall our commonwealth, which has been so true to the country and to the 
 democratic party, be made the theatre of this distress and ruin ? What is there 
 in her trade, her business, or the character of her people, that makes these re¬ 
 peated attacks necessary or proper ? The history of her trade is one of honest 
 industry and humble thrift. 
 
 With the indulgence of the Senate, I will go into a somewhat detailed state¬ 
 ment of the leading branches of that trade. I need not say, that in agriculture 
 she has stood foremost among the States of the Union ; that her land is among 
 the most fertile, and that it has been the most highly cultivated ; that her farm¬ 
 ers are proverbial for their virtue, their intelligence, and their skill. Nowhere 
 has more attention been paid to agriculture as a pursuit or as a science, and 
 nowhere has it been crowned with greater success. Nowhere in this Union is 
 the eye of the traveller delighted with such substantial evidences of comfort and 
 happiness as are presented in her beautifully cultivated farms and their neat and 
 substantial dwellings. And yet, Mr. President, notwithstanding all we hear 
 within these walls of the injury sustained by agriculture, in supporting manufac¬ 
 tures, this whole population have been united as one man in sustaining their 
 infant manufactures and developing the resources of their mines. 
 
 Let us look at her coal trade; and if I cannot instruct the Senate by its de¬ 
 tails, I shall at least astonish them by the rapidity of its growth; and I trust I 
 shall induce some Senators to pause, before they aid in the entire destruction of 
 this vast interest—an interest which has increased more rapidly than any branch 
 of industry in the country. 
 
 The coal trade commenced in 1S20. In that year only 365 tons of anthracite 
 coal were sent to market. 
 
13 
 
 In 1821 
 1822 
 
 1,073 tons. 
 2,240 
 
 1830 
 
 1835 
 
 1840 
 
 1842 
 
 1845 
 
 174,737 
 
 556,835 
 
 865,414 
 
 1,108,001 
 
 2,021,674 
 
 And in 1846 it will fully reach 2,500,000 tons. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that, in proportion to the aid extended by the govern¬ 
 ment to this important trade, not only has the quantity increased, but the price 
 has been reduced to the citizens; thus completely destroying the free trade theory 
 of the present day. Upon the same principle, the price will continue to fall as 
 the quantity mined rises, to a certain extent; for, like all other commercial trans¬ 
 actions, the operater makes his profits from the amount of business he does, 
 rather than the separate items of it. This will be seen by the table of sales in 
 Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, for the last six years : 
 
 
 Philadelphia. N. York. Boston. 
 
 1840 
 
 1841 
 '1842 
 
 1843 
 
 1844 
 
 1845 
 
 per ton $5 50 $8 00 
 
 5 00 7 75 
 
 4 25 6 50 
 
 3 50 5 75 
 
 3 37 5 50 
 
 3 50 6 00 
 
 k9 00 to $11 00 
 
 8 00 to 9 00 
 
 6 00 to 6 50 
 
 6 00 to 6 50 
 
 6 00 to 6 50 
 
 6 00 to 7 00 
 
 In 1840 labor was from $5 to $6 a week; now it commands from $8 to $10. 
 
 Here is a regular decrease for five years. In the present year there is a slight 
 rise, occasioned by the destruction of the Schuylkill canal, and the consequent 
 inability of the miners to send a sufficient quantity to market. 
 
 Twenty years ago good wood commanded, nearly every winter, in the Phila¬ 
 delphia and New York markets, as much as $8 and $10 a cord, and frequently, 
 in extremely cold winters, it rose much higher. So much distress was there 
 often in large cities from the want of fuel, that it led, as a matter of necessity, 
 to the establishment of fuel-saving societies, by which the poor man could pro¬ 
 tect himself against the high prices in the winter season. Now, a ton of coal, 
 which is equal to a cord and a half of hickory wood, can be purchased in either of 
 these cities for what was, twenty years ago, the lowest price of a cord of wood. 
 The introduction of this new article of fuel, which has been fostered and en¬ 
 couraged into use by our revenue laws, has brought down the price of this ne¬ 
 cessary of life, and has been the cause of more comfort to the poor man’s home 
 than any invention of the age. Thirty years ago this article (I mean the an¬ 
 thracite coal of Pennsylvania) was entirely unknown; now it gives employ¬ 
 ment to labor, annually, equal to five millions of days’ work. It gives employ¬ 
 ment to about 700 ships of 160 tons each, and it affords a nursery for the education 
 of about 5,000 seamen, the importance of which can only be felt in case of a war 
 with a maritime power. Destroy this business, and you transfer this nursery to 
 the coal mines of Great Britain. It has invested in it more than fifty millions 
 of dollars, and it sustains a population in its immediate neighborhood of some 
 60,000 or 70,000 people. It consumes annually more than two millions of dol¬ 
 lars’ worth of agricultural products, and more than three and a half millions of 
 dollars’ worth of merchandise. 
 
 The oil alone consumed in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, in one 
 year, is worth over three hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 The rent paid by the miners to the owners of land amounts to an annual sum of 
 $600,000, and this sum is produced by a very small charge on each ton mined— 
 not more than 30 or 40 cents—all the remainder being expended for labor in 
 
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 one form or another; and the land for which this rent is paid was, until recently, 
 a barren waste. 
 
 The effect of the tariff upon this branch of our industry is illustrated by the 
 following fact: 
 
 In 1837 the amount of coal sent to market was - - 881,000 tons. 
 
 In 1842, with low duties, it had increased to only - - 1,108,000 
 
 Showing an increase of 227,000 tons in five years. In 1846 it will be over 
 2,500,000 tons, showing an increase, under the effects of the tariff of 1842, in 
 a period of only four years, of 1,392,'000 tons. 
 
 Among the striking effects of the introduction of this article, fostered as it 
 has been by our tariff laws, is one for the correctness of which I appeal to the 
 Senators of Massachusetts: the completion of the Reading railroad, one of the 
 avenues by which the coal reaches market, has made such a reduction in the 
 price of fuel in that State, that the amount saved annually to its citizens equals 
 the interest on her whole State debt; thus virtually abolishing the debt itself. I 
 take this State as a matter of convenience, as it is the great market of the east. 
 Its effect on other States, particularly New York, must be equally striking. 
 And yet, if I may be permitted to digress, we see public men, professing to 
 represent the interest of their constituents, giving their aid to the destruction of 
 this business, so important to those interests. 
 
 The anthracite coal is confined to the eastern base of the Allegany moun¬ 
 tains. On the western slope only is found bituminous coal, and almost every 
 western county of Pennsylvania, and nearly every one of the western States, 
 abounds in it. I have not had time to investigate the amount of business con¬ 
 nected with it; the operations of it have been confined to local sections: but 
 it has greatly increased since the tariff of 1842 has kept the British coal from 
 competing with it in the New Orleans market. I will, however, give one fact, 
 showing the effect of the trade and use of this article upon the prosperity of the 
 country. The city of Pittsburg, it is known to all, lies in a basin surrounded 
 with coal veins. It is one vast workshop, and its whole growth and prosperity 
 is derived from the coal extracted from the frowning mountains which sur¬ 
 round it. Every one of its citizens lives, directly or indirectly, from the produce 
 of the coal mines. 
 
 The town of Pittsburg in 1813 had but 5,748 inhabitants. In 1840 the popu¬ 
 lation of the city proper was 21,166. It is now 45,000—more than doubled in 
 six years. I have not the data, but I presume nearly all this increase has taken 
 place since 1842, as I know, for some years preceding the passage of the tariff 
 bill, business was almost entirely suspended. The population of the city and 
 surrounding villages, which are actually a part of the city, amounts to the round 
 number of 100,000, and its whole prosperity has its origin in its coal and its 
 iron, and the manufactures which they have brought into existence. The coal 
 now used by our steamships on the gulf is furnished from the Monongahela 
 coal mines; and the movements of our fleet before Vera Cruz, to which the 
 eyes of the nation are now turned, will greatly depend on an abundance of this 
 important means of national defence within our own borders. Destroy the trade 
 produced by these mines, and in time of war we might have to depend on our 
 enemy for a supply of this essential element in modern warfare. 
 
 I beg western Senators to look at the picture which Pittsburg presents to them, 
 in the hope that, instead of aiding to destroy the tariff, they will look to the many 
 points, equally well situated, with coal and iron around them, upon which cities 
 may be made to grow up, and, like it, become a market for the vast agricultural 
 products of their fertile regions. 
 
 The next most important product of Pennsylvania is her manufactures of iron. 
 
 By the census of 1840, the number of furnaces in Pennsylvania was 213. 
 Returns were procured in 1842 from a large number of them, showing them to 
 be capable of producing 152,000 tons of pig metal. The tariff of 1842 found the 
 
15 
 
 fires of nearly all these furnaces extinguished, their workmen idle, and their 
 families in many cases without the means of subsistence. And it is a melan¬ 
 choly truth that many debts then contracted for the means of living are still un¬ 
 paid from the savings of years of hard labor. Since the passage of the bill of 
 1S42 more than 100 new furnaces have been built, which produce 178,000 tons 
 of metal—more than 100 per cent, of an'increase. 
 
 The investment of capital to produce one ton of charcoal pig metal is esti¬ 
 mated at $47, and for anthracite pig metal $25. These sums multiplied by the 
 amounts of charcoal and anthracite metal annually produced by the furnaces 
 that have been erected since 1842, shows a capital of $6,000,000 invested in the 
 business since that time. This and the capital previously invested, with the 
 amount necessary to put the metal into castings, &c., makes the whole invest¬ 
 ment about $20,000,000. This is wholly independent of the current expendi¬ 
 tures necessary to produce the iron. 
 
 The metal produced by these furnaces annually, in its raw state, is worth 
 $11,000,000. If one-half of it, which is probable, is converted into bar or 
 other coarse iron, it cannot be done for less than an expenditure of $9,000,000; 
 and if the other half be put into castings, it will cost $4,000,000. Thus showing 
 an actual expenditure of 24,000,000 of dollars annually in the neighborhood of 
 the furnaces; the greater part of which is paid to the farmer, the laborer, and the 
 mechanic, of the surrounding country. 
 
 A careful estimate shows that about seventeen thousand men are necessary to 
 produce the iron made in Pennsylvania this year, in the capacity of laborers and 
 mechanics, in connexion with its immediate production. Allowing six persons 
 to a family, and we have over a hundred thousand persons immediately con¬ 
 nected with the labor of these furnaces. The labor necessary to convert this 
 metal into bars, hoops, castings, railway iron, &c., &c., would fully equal another 
 hundred thousand persons. In this estimate there is no account taken of the 
 thousands upon thousands of persons engaged in the various pursuits growing 
 out of, and indirectly connected with, the manufacture of iron. 
 
 I have given here a statement of the manufacture of iron in its first stages 
 only. I have no means of estimating the number of persons or the amount of 
 capital employed in converting it into machinery, mechanical uses, and the end¬ 
 less variety of fabrics into which it enters. 
 
 Every village in the State has one or more foundries; ever)’ large town has 
 its machine shop; and the sound of the steam engine greets your ear at every 
 turn. I have not had time to pursue this investigation in all its minor details. 
 There is no means of estimating the variety of use to which it is destined to be 
 applied. It is already used extensively in boats, and to some extent in ships 
 of the largest class; and it is the only material of which ships engaged in the 
 commerce of the gulf can be made proof against the destructive character of 
 the marine worms of that region.* 
 
 * As an illustration of the value of labor that is put upon it, I give to the curious the follotvinj 
 
 The quantity of cast iron worth sterling becomes worth the following sums: £ s 
 
 When converted into ordinary machinery ------ 4 ( 
 
 Large ornamental work - -- -- -- - 45 I 
 
 Buckles, (Berlin work) -------- 660 ( 
 
 Neck chains - - - - - - - - - 1,386 < 
 
 Shirt buttons - - - - - - - - - 5,896 ( 
 
 The quantity of bar iron worth £1 sterling becomes, when formed into 
 Horse-shoe work - -- -- -- -- 2 1( 
 
 Knives, (table).36 ( 
 
 Needles -.71 ( 
 
 Penknife blades - -- -- -- -- 657 ( 
 
 Polished buttons and buckles. 897 C 
 
 Balance springs of Watches - - - - - - - - 50,000 C 
 
What I have done has been with a view of showing the great importance of 
 this trade, now threatened with destructionwith no motive, that I can see, 
 unless it be to build up in the south a lordly aristocracy who have no con- 
 ception of the dignity of labor. It shall not be said hereafter that this calamity 
 was brought upon the laboring men of my country without all the effort in my 
 power to prevent it. My sympathies are with these people. I come from among 
 the children of toil, and, by constant application and honest labor, have reached 
 the proud position I occupy to-day. The best legacy I could desire to leave my 
 children would be the fact that I had contributed to defeat a measure fraught, 
 as I believe this is, with calamity to those with whom I have mingled all my 
 life. These laboring men are mostly democats. Their employers are frequently 
 of the opposite politics', yet, with the freedom and independence that I hope will 
 ever characterize the yeomanry of this land, they vote entirely untrammelled. 
 They will be surprised to be told now that the doctrine of a protective tariff, 
 which they have always believed in and sustained, is not democratic. 
 
 What American citizen can desire to see his fellow-citizens brought down to a 
 level with the pauper labor of Europe? What makes our country great but the in¬ 
 dustry, the intelligence, and honest enterprise of the men whose means of living 
 is to be taken from them by this bill? In what other country under heaven has 
 the man who toils for his daily bread the right to say who shall make and ad¬ 
 minister his laws? Where else is the proud spectacle presented of the labor¬ 
 ing man approaching the ballot-box free, and without restraint? In what other 
 country can the journeyman mechanic reach the Senate chamber ? And yet this 
 bill seems to have no other contemplation of the laboring man here, than as 
 the pauper laborer of Europe. But how dilferent is their condition. At one 
 iron establishment in Wales, where three thousand men are employed, over 
 2,000 of them get but 12| cents a day ; others, from 16 to 20 cents a day, and 
 board themselves. In this country the lowest price paid is a dollar, and "others 
 receive from $2 to $4 a day. 
 
 We make in the Union about 480,000 tons of iron annually, more than half 
 of which is made in Pennsylvania. 
 
 The product of British iron manufactured is about 1,500,000 tons. The pop¬ 
 ulation in Great Britain proper exceeds ours by about 7,000,000. In 1825, 
 their duty on a ton of bar iron was $37 50. It was kept at that until the fa¬ 
 cilities for making it enabled them to make it cheaper than any other nation. 
 Our facilities for making it are daily increasing', and the day is not distant 
 when the State of Pennsylvania will be able to compete with England, if her 
 furnaces are not strangled now by this bill. 
 
 In France, at the present day, there is a duty of $41 75 on rolled iron, and 
 $15 50 on pig metal. Russia has a heavy duty on iron ; so has Sweden ; and 
 indeed every nation that produces it. The consequence must be that the iron 
 of England must break down our manufacturers; for, having no other market, 
 she will at any price flood ours, until our furnaces are closed and our capital 
 gone into some other channel; when, having no competition, she will force 
 her own price and make her own profits. Why should not this trade be pre¬ 
 served to our own people ? Why should the bonds of union, formed by the 
 commerce in these articles between the different States, be broken up ? If the 
 Union is worth preserving, why not by all means strengthen the cords which 
 bind it together? We may be almost a world within ourselves. We have every 
 soil and climate under the sun, and every product of the world can be fur¬ 
 nished in some one of the States; and, while we are giving just protection to 
 the agriculture, manufactures, navigation, commerce, and the mechanic arts of 
 the different sections, we are contributing to the comfort, happiness, and secu¬ 
 rity of the whole Union. It is idle to expect that the reduction of the duties 
 on these articles will reduce the price. It is a well known fact that the lessees 
 of the British coal mines and the iron manufacturers can control the supply, 
 
17 
 
 by an arrangement among themselves. ' They now have quarterly meetings to 
 effect that object, and to fix the prices; and no more is produced than is neces¬ 
 sary to command a particular price. If this bill is passed, we shall of course 
 have to comply with their terms. 
 
 C have alluded somewhat at length to some of the principal brandies of 
 manufactures and commerce in my State. I have done so in the hope of ar¬ 
 resting the attention of Senators, and of inducing them to pause before they de¬ 
 stroy them. There are others of great importance, but time will not permit me 
 to pursue them in detail. Her cotton and woolen manufactures are both very 
 extensive, and furnish employment to many thousand people. The city of 
 Philadelphia itself is one vast manufactory, in which, within the last four years, 
 has silently sprung up some of the largest establishments in the Union, and 
 in which are made fabrics equal to the finest productions of the world. Her 
 locomotives fly over the railroads of various quarters of the globe, and her steam 
 engines are used in every State of the Union. Her glass works are extensive 
 and prosperous, and rival the best productions of Europe. New woolen and 
 cotton manufactories are springing up daily, and now scarcely need protection, 
 except from the frauds which will most certainly be practised under .his bill. 
 
 The manufacture of paper in the State emplpys about fifteen hundred persons, 
 in about one hundred mills, who receive annually in wages about §300,000. 
 The product of these mills amounts to about §1,250,000. This article is pro¬ 
 duced mainly from a material which is otherwise entirely useless. The amount 
 of rags consumed is equal in value to §600,000. The effect of this manufac¬ 
 ture upon the household economy of every family must be obvious to everyone, 
 of the slighest perceptions. Other nations, wiser it would seem than us, have 
 placed a proper estimate upon its importance. France, by an unusual restric¬ 
 tion, prohibits entirely the exportation of rags from her dominions. With a 
 population of 33,000,000 who are producers of rags, not more than 5,000,000 
 probably are consumers of paper. Rags are, therefore, furnished to their mills 
 for about the labor of collecting them. Not more than a cent or two, at most, 
 is paid for the best rags, while in this country they command three t'imes that 
 price. This, with the low price of labor, enables them to send their paper 
 here, and derive a profit after paying a very high duty. Destroy, as you will by 
 this bill, the entire manufacture of many kinds of paper in this country, and 
 suppose, as the result—which, however, I do not admit—that the prices will be 
 reduced: I ask, where is the compensation for the immense loss the country 
 will suffer in the destruction of the domestic market for 'her rags ? Senators 
 ■will be surprised when I tell them that the waste articles from which paper is 
 made in this country amount to eighty thousand tons per annum, and that they 
 are worth at least six and a half millions of dollars. Let it be remembered 
 that this is a mere saving of an otherwise useless article. Experience in this 
 country proves that when the price is lower than now paid, the supply of rags 
 greatly diminishes. Materials of this kind, peculiar to the southern States, pay 
 for all the paper used there; and those materials would be entirely worthless if 
 our paper establishments were driven out of existence. 
 
 In addition to the vast expenditure by individuals, the State of Pennsylvania 
 has invested, herself, over forty millions of dollars to create avenues for carrying 
 these manufactures to market. The toll paid by them in turn enables her to pay 
 the interest on this debt: the prosperity, therefore, of these establishments, is 
 vitally important to the welfare of the State itself. No wonder, then, at the anxi¬ 
 ety of all her citizens on this subject. With an increased tax staring them in 
 the face, to pay the interest on their State debt, and a direct tax to support the 
 general government, which is sure to follow if the free trade notions of the 
 south are carried out, I pity the public man, Mr. President, who shall call on 
 them after having contributed to this result. I have referred to the internal im¬ 
 provements of Pennsylvania as State works. They are in truth great national 
 
works, made at the cost of a single State. Three-fourths of the States of the 
 Union derive immense benefits from their construction. The national govern¬ 
 ment already, in the transportation of her troops and munitions of war over them, 
 has saved a large sum. She could now transport from Philadelphia to Lake Erie 
 one hundred thousand men for what it cost, during the last war with England, 
 to get a single regiment there. It was no uncommon price then to pay $360 
 a ton for freight from Pittsburg to Erie. By our canals a ton can now be 
 transported between those points for five dollars ; and yet the general govern¬ 
 ment would, by this bill, prevent us from paying the interest upon the debt con¬ 
 tracted for them. 
 
 The advocates of this bill offer us, as a remedy for all the evils to be produced 
 by the destruction of our manufactories and our mechanic interests, an increased 
 market for our agricultural products. Let us look into that. The Hon. Secre¬ 
 tary of the Treasury, who should be good authority, in his celebrated Texas let¬ 
 ter urges the annexation mainly upon the importance of securing by it a home 
 market for our agricultural products. In that letter occurs the following impor¬ 
 tant passage : “The foreign consumption of our products is a mere drop in the 
 bucket in comparison with that of the home market. * * ' f 
 
 Our exports of domestic products, by the treasury report of 1840, amount to 
 $103,533,896 ; deducting which from our whole product, (by the census of 1S40, 
 $959,600,845,) would leave $856,066,949 of our products consumed in that 
 year by our population of seventeen millions, and the consumption of our do¬ 
 mestic products by the population of the world only amounts to $103,533,896.” 
 This view taken in that letter added greatly to reconcile the people of the north 
 to the annexation ; and yet, among the first results of that act is the introduction 
 of a policy wholly adverse to the arguments upon which it was procured. It. is 
 well known that without Pennsylvania the annexation could not have been 
 accomplished. And now we seelhe representatives ofTexas in Congress uniting 
 in a measure which Pennsylvania deprecates as a curse, which only her enemies 
 ought to inflict. Is this the return we had a right to expect ? Well may she 
 exclaim, “ Save me from my friends!” But to return. The Secretary was cor¬ 
 rect in stating that we must look at home for a market. The small amount of 
 exports—less than one-ninth of the whole amount produced in the country— 
 ought to be sufficient to satisfy every one that we cannot rely on a foreign 
 market. 
 
 The honorable chairman of the Committee on Finance has undertaken to 
 show that there has been a large increase in our exports for the last half year. 
 The correctness of his conclusions are rendered doubtful from the very partial 
 view which he has taken of the subject. He has given us only the exports from 
 the port of New York. It will be readily seen that they may be greatly increased 
 there, and yet the whole amount be scarcely varied. Owing to the restrictions 
 heretofore imposed upon our trade with Great Britain, and the regulations of 
 their colonial system, our agricultural products were taken first into Canada, 
 and exported thence into England. The recent changes in her corn laws, while 
 they have materially affected the interest of their Canadian subjects, have had no 
 beneficial effect upon our prices. This the honorable chairman has kept out of 
 sight. The only change has been to export this produce directly to England 
 instead of through Canada, without benefiting in the slightest degree the farmer 
 here. 
 
 The chairman speaks of the anticipated repeal of the corn laws. He ought 
 to have known that this repeal has been absolute for some months. When Sir 
 Robert Peel introduced his new corn bill into Parliament, the custom-house 
 officers were directed to regulate the duties by its provisions, taking bonds from 
 the importer for the difference to be paid should the bill not become a law. 
 
 It is probable that a larger amount of breadstuff’s will be shipped this year 
 
19 
 
 than heretofore, but for reasons very different from that assigned by the honora¬ 
 ble chairman. One I have already given. The anticipation of the netv British 
 tariff regulations gave a sudden and unwarranted advance to prices here, last 
 fall. Unusually large amounts were purchased by speculators. Their expecta¬ 
 tions were not realized ; and, after holding as long as their means and credit 
 would permit, they were compelled to sell at any prices. From these ruined 
 speculators it went into the hands of shippers, who have sent it abroad. I 
 should like to see the first farmer who has received the slightest benefit from 
 the modification of the English corn laws. It is an indisputable fact that 
 we never have and never can compete with northern Europe in supplying Eng¬ 
 land with breadstuffs ! The laws of nature and of trade render it utterly im¬ 
 practicable. The history of the flour business of this country proves that when 
 it is at the lowest price, exportations are largest. When the farmer sells his 
 flour for half price, when the dealer and miller are ruined all over the country, 
 then, and then only, do the British buy breadstuffs from us in large quantities: 
 at no other time can we compete with the low-priced wheat and rye shipped 
 into England from the Russian and German provinces—countries where literally 
 the “ox is muzzled who treads out the corn,” and where the laborer who 
 produces the grain is permitted only to eat the husks from which the wheat is 
 winnowed. 
 
 We are referred to the recent action of England upon her corn laws, as area- 
 son for reducing our tariff upon foreign manufactures. Who is so blind as not 
 to see that there is no parallel between the cases ? In England it is an effort of 
 the laboring population to rid themselves of the oppression of the landed aris¬ 
 tocracy, by which they are deprived of their bread. Here, it is an effort of the 
 aristocracy to deprive the laboring man of the means of earning his bread. 
 
 The great market, and the only certain market of this country, is that created 
 by the manufactuiing interest at home. Those who look to Europe for con¬ 
 sumers of the products of our soil will be disappointed; and, in the end, the 
 surplus population and increased capital of the west will seek manufactures as 
 the means of employment. 
 
 In proof of this view of the case, I need only mention the fact that the single 
 State of Massachusetts took last year from the other States last year one million of 
 barrels of flour—more than the whole export of that article from the United States 
 to foreign countries. It is also true that for the last twenty years the home market 
 has generally kept the price of breadstuffs above the shipping price. These facts 
 ought to settle this question. I might ask, in conclusion, what beneficial effect 
 can the reduction of the price abroad have upon our products here ? 
 
 Tlie objections to this bill itself are so numerous, that it is hard to tell where 
 they begin or where they end. I am glad to be able to acquit my honorable 
 and able friend, the chairman of the Committee on Finance, from all par¬ 
 ticipation in concocting a scheme so well calculated to do mischief, so 
 badly adapted to the legitimate business of the country, and so certain to fail 
 iu producing a sufficient revenue to meet the expectations of the government. 
 Its chief evil on the business of tbe country is its inefficient provisions to 
 detect and punish frauds on the revenue. Our citizens might in time, to some 
 extent, overcome the inadequacy of its protection; but there is no method by 
 which they can guard against the frauds that will be practised under it. My 
 friend the chairman felicitates himself upon the security against fraud by the 
 absence of motive. He produces an array of figures to show that the gain upon 
 an invoice of goods undervalued 15 per cent, would produce a profit of only 
 per cent., if successful. He thinks this a very small matter; and to the 
 large southern planter, accustomed to estimate wealth by his immense cotton 
 and rice fields, it may be; but the result of his own figures will show it to be 
 no inconsiderable sum. Let us take a single case, which is by no means un- 
 
20 
 
 common. A foreign manufacturer sends an agent, who opens a counting- 
 house in New York ostensibly for the purpose of importing goods. He receives 
 on consignment $800,000 worth annually, upon which the 2J- per cent, gain, 
 by the undervaluation, is $20,000. I am assured by the most experienced and 
 intelligent merchants that it would be utterly impossible to detect an underval¬ 
 uation of 15 per cent, on cloths. I venture to affirm that you could not find a 
 man of character who would be willing to put his judgment in the scale for 
 the difference of 15 per cent, in valuation, when the sum in dispute was $1,000. 
 This being the case, how unlikely is it that appraisers, appointed as they are for 
 their political services, with but little reference to their business qualifications, 
 would ever detect this difference in the valuation. The profits of large mercan¬ 
 tile transactions are generally very small on the items. Commission houses, 
 doing business to the amount of a million of dollars, will guaranty their sales 
 for per cent. When the consignment is very large, the guaranty is frequently 
 given for 1J or 2 per cent. 
 
 Now if a house on the other side can save an amount greater than they would 
 have to pay for the guaranty of the whole amount of their consignment, I ask, is 
 there not motive of gain sufficient to induce the undervaluation ? particularly 
 where the morals on the subject of revenue laws are as loose as in England 
 and France, where they avow it is not wrong to cheat the government. I am as¬ 
 sured by a very respectable merchant, that of the large number of foreign agents 
 doing business in New York under the compromise act, scarcely any of them 
 are now to be found there. Upon the passage of the act of 1842, they closed 
 their stores and went home, because they could no longer defraud the govern¬ 
 ment by false invoices. 
 
 .Another serious objection to the bill is its uniform discrimination in favor of 
 the foreign mechanic and laborer against our own.' This principle—if principle 
 it may be called—abounds throughout the whole bill. Every class of mechan¬ 
 ics is to be affected, and the business of many of them to be destroyed by it. 
 The tailor, the hatter, the shoemaker, the saddler, the tinman, the blacksmith, 
 and all others, will see their towns and villages filled with the work of foreign 
 pauper labor underselling them at their own doors, to pay for which the country 
 is to be drained of its specie. To exemplify this, I will refer to a few only of 
 the many glaring instances of this character in the bill. There are, by estimate, 
 in the United States, about 500,000 men employed in making clothes, and we 
 may to this add that number of women engaged in the same pursuit. Ready¬ 
 made clothes, by this bill, as in schedule C, are charged 30 per cent., and the 
 material of which most of them are made is in the same schedule. All know 
 that the labor upon clothes in Europe, particularly France, is done by poor 
 women and half starved men, who eat meat perhaps once a month—who give 
 no education to their children, and who never expect to see them elevated 
 above the wretchedness of their birth. These persons, who literally work for 
 a shilling a day, will flood the country with ready-made clothes, and drive out 
 of employment this intelligent and worthy class of our people. 
 
 In further proof, I will cite a few cases of smaller manufactures. Take the 
 case of ginger, for instance: the raw material in schedule B paying 40 per cent, 
 ad valorem, while the manufactured article is, in schedule C, paying 30 per 
 cent., thus giving 10 per cent, of a premium to foreign labor over our own. 
 
 The like case occurs in iron to be converted into steel. The raw material is, 
 in schedule C, paying 30 per cent., and the steel itself is, in schedule F, paying 
 only 15 per cent. Again, we have the case of Peruvian bark to be converted 
 into quinine. The raw material is charged 15 per cent., while the manufactured 
 one is charged but 20; making only 5 per cent, of a difference, when heretofore 
 there has been a difference of 20 per cent, in order to encourage its manttfac- 
 
ture in this country. The amount of capital invested in this item, apparently 
 so unimportant, is very large. A single house in Philadelphia has in its 
 manufacture more than §100,000. This branch of manufactures, like all 
 others, adds largely to the commerce and navigation of the country. It re¬ 
 quires 35 pounds of bark to make one of quinine. The manufacturer here 
 purchases the cheap domestic fabrics of the country, ships them to the western 
 coast of South America, and barters them for bark, with which his ships 
 return laden. The bark is made into quinine; and its great value is the labor 
 which is here put upon it. Our great competitors in this manufacture are the 
 the English and the French. If you destroy our establishments, you transfer 
 also to those countries the commerce and navigation connected with them. 
 Western Senators may perhaps not be aware of the great importance attached 
 to this article throughout their whole country. It is used in almost every form 
 of disease that presents itself, and it has become the almost constant companion 
 of every family there. Will they not only aid in destroying the labor of their 
 fellow-citizens; but will they also deprive their neighbors of the poor consolation 
 of procuring a remedy for the diseases of their climate? Is there no motive 
 sacred enough to arrest this unholy crusade? 
 
 Further investigation has satisfied me, that what pretends to be provisions for 
 producing revenue can have no other effect than to act as an absolute prohibi¬ 
 tion, preventing entirely the importation of many articles that are very important 
 to various branches of our industry, and some of them even necessary to our 
 national welfare. I have already trespassed much longer upon the time of the 
 Senate than I had intended ; hut, to show the incongruities of this measure, and 
 that it is unwise, considered as a revenue measure alone, let me give you the 
 instance of cotton goods which are in schedule C, and charged 30 per cent. 
 Just as many of these goods will be imported and used if the duty were three 
 times that amount, as they will at that rate ; for they are articles used generally 
 by the wealthy, and are purely luxuries, and none of them made in this country. 
 They are cambrics, jaconets, mulls of various kinds, and very fine muslins, gen¬ 
 erally of the kind known in the trade as white goods. A wise financier, in a 
 purely revenue bill, would collect his duties from the articles used by the rich, 
 and, so far as he could, leave the poor untouched. No such principle is in this 
 bill. 
 
 I annex a rate of duties upon cotton articles, which I am assured by active 
 business men would produce at least 50 per cent, more revenue than the same 
 goods will under the House bill, and at the same time protect our own manu¬ 
 factures, and operate less oppressively on the poor: 
 
 No. 1. All cotton goods under 44 picks to the sq. inch, 1| cts. the sq. yd. duty. 
 
 2. Do under 56 do 3 cts. do 
 
 3. Do under 60 do 4 cts. do 
 
 4. Do under 64 do 5 cts. do 
 
 5. Do under 72 do 6 cts. do 
 
 6. Do under 100 do 9 cts. do 
 
 No. 1 embraces all kinds of heavy brown and bleached cotton sheetings and 
 shirtings, and the common prints and stripes, that are used by everybody, and 
 necessary to the laboring people; and the duty would be about 18 per cent. 
 
 No. 2 covers printing cloths, of which calicoes are made that sell at from 9 
 to 10 cents, common bleach cottons that sell from 10 to 11; and the duty would 
 not average over 30 per cent. 
 
 No. 3 embraces fine print cloths, fine sheetijig and shirtings; and the duty 
 would average about 33 per cent. 
 
22 
 
 No. 4, same kinds of goods, finer grades, about 35 per cent. 
 
 No. 5, Do still finer, about 38 per cent. 
 
 No. 6, all kinds of very fine “ white goods,” about 40 per cent. 
 
 I have said, Mr. President, that I have been utterly at a loss for the motive 
 which prompted the introduction of such a measure at this time. Its first ef¬ 
 fect must inevitably be to deprive us of the means of paying even the interest 
 upon the debt we are now incurring; and the consequence will be, that a debt 
 will be entailed on the nation, embarrassing all its operations for years to come. 
 
 It has been the policy of the democratic party to avoid a national debt. The 
 
 payment of the national debt under the administration of General Jackson 
 caused rejoicings throughout the country. Now, as if forgetting the policy of 
 our fathers, we are, in time of war, when our expenses are necessarily greatly 
 increased, entering upon an untried experiment, which, it is admitted on all 
 sides, will greatly decrease our income. Can this be done for the special pur¬ 
 pose of creating the necessity of direct taxes, and hereafter the entire abolition 
 of our revenue laws ? Is this the end to which it looks ? That section of the 
 Union which controls this bill can control any other, if northern men will crouch 
 before them. It will be found very convenient, in laying these direct taxes, to 
 exempt the negro population of the south, and lay them on the property and 
 labor of the north. If this be so, the nullification of which we have heard may 
 not be so remote as good men have imagined. 
 
 I wish I could induce my southern friends to pause, while it is yet not too late, 
 ere they strike a blow which must recoil on themselves. They cannot be pros¬ 
 perous if we are prostrate. It is a great mistake to suppose that the prosperity 
 of the north inflicts an injury upon them. The foundation of the evii of which 
 they complain will be found in the over-production of a single article. In 
 1824, cotton brought 21 cents per pound. This produced such an immense 
 profit, that men went in debt to buy slaves, and every southern man became a 
 cotton-planter. This increased the amount from 176,000,000 pounds in 1824, 
 to 863,000,000 pounds in 1845, and reduced the price to 6 cents per pound. 
 We are told there is never a surplus stock on hand, as an argument against this 
 fact. But that is accounted for, in my mind, by the fact that the necessities of 
 the cotton-planter compel him to push his cotton crop into the market to pay 
 his debts already made in anticipation of it. A little northern thrift, which 
 teaches our manufacturers to live within their means, would do them much ser¬ 
 vice, and in the end cure many of the evils attributed to the tariff of 1842. 
 
 Much stress is laid upon the cotton crop of the south, and the whole legisla¬ 
 tion of this country is to be regulated by it. I do not wish to detract from its 
 value, but I will show how small it is in comparison with the other agricultural 
 products of the country. The entire cotton crop of the last year was 936,OSS,- 
 000 pounds, which, at 7 cents per pound, amounts to $65,226,160. My south¬ 
 ern friends will perhaps hardly credit the fact, that the value of the hay crop, 
 upon which our cattle and horses are fed, is more than 100 per cent, over this; 
 amounting, at $10 a ton, to $140,065,000. The whole value of the tobacco 
 crop, at 5'cents, is $9,371,100; the wheat crop alone, at $1 a bushel, is $106,- 
 584,000; the oats, at 30 cents, is worth $48,962,400 ; and the potato crop, so 
 lightly estimated, is worth more than one-half the entire cotton crop, being, at 
 40 cents a bushel, $35,356,800. Why should all these important products be 
 lost sight of in our commercial regulations? 
 
 It is said that letters have been received here from my own State, approving 
 of this measure. It cannot be possible. Although it may pass here as a po¬ 
 litical measure, not a Senator, as I believe, would be willing to adopt it as his 
 own; and I cannot therefore believe that any business man, anxious for the wel¬ 
 fare of the country, can advise its passage. It may be true that some individuals 
 in that good State are mad enough, or ignorant enough, or dishonest enough, 
 
23 
 
 to flatter what they believe to be the majority here, by crying hozannas to men 
 in power. If such letters have been received, they must have been written by 
 men who have no interest in common with their fellow-citizens; men who would 
 barter principle for office, and see the whole State in ruin, if they could only 
 batten upon the offals of the government. 
 
 We are told out of the house that this bill is to become a law by the casting 
 vote of the Vice President. I am happy to say that I have seen no evidence of 
 such intention, nor will I believe that there is such a design, until I am con¬ 
 vinced by the evidence of my own senses. To all the inquiries that have been 
 made of me, I have said that it cannot be; that no native Pennsylvanian, hon¬ 
 ored with the trust and confidence of his fellow-citizens, could prove recreant 
 to that trust, and dishonor the State that gave him birth. His honorable name, 
 and the connexion of hi r _. cestry with her history, forbid it. His own public 
 acts and written sentiments forbid it. If, as has been said, this question is to 
 be settled by the casting vote of the Vice President, he will not, as a wise man, 
 adopt a bill which no Senator will father, but will rather, taking advantage of 
 his high and honorable position, make one which shall contribute to the hap¬ 
 piness of our people, and the glory of our common country. Let him not be 
 allured by the voice of flattery from the sunny south. No man can be strong 
 abroad who is not strong at home. Before a public man risks a desperate leap, 
 he should remember that political gratitude is prospective; that desertion of 
 home, of friends, and of country, may be hailed by the winning party when the 
 traitor is carrying in the flag of his country; but when the honors of the nation 
 whom he has served are to be distributed, none are given to him. 
 
 Will any man believe that a son of South Carolina, occupying that chair, 
 elected under such circumstances, with the casting vote in his hands on this bill, 
 would give that vote contrary to the almost unanimous wishes of his own State? 
 And shall it be said that a Pennsylvanian has less attachment for his common¬ 
 wealth than a son of Carolina? I have said that I will not believe it; and as 
 evidence that it cannot be so, I give, in conclusion, the following eloquent pas¬ 
 sage from a speech of the honorable George M. Dallas, when occupying the seat 
 I notv hold, on a question precisely similar to the one now before us. 
 
 Extract from a speech of Mr. Dallas on the tariff of 1833. 
 
 “I am inflexible, sir, as to nothing but adequate protection. The process of attaining that 
 may undergo any mutation. Secure that to the home labor of this country, and our opponents 
 shall have, as far as my voice and suffrage can give it to them, a ‘ carle blanche’ whereon to set¬ 
 tle any arrangement or adjustment their intelligence may suggest. It might have been expected, 
 not unreasonably, that they who desired change should tender their projet; that they would de¬ 
 signate noxious particulars and intimate their remedies; that they would invoke the skill and 
 assistance of practical and experienced observers on a subject with which few of us are familiar, 
 and point with precision to such parts of the extensive system as can be modified without weak¬ 
 ening or endangering the whole structure. They have forborne to do this. They demand an 
 entire demolition. Pr.r.n trade is the burden of their eloquence; the golden fleece of their ad¬ 
 venturous enterprise; the goal short of which they will not pause even to breathe. I cannot 
 join their expedition for such object. An established policy—coeval, in the language of Presi¬ 
 dent Jackson, with our government—believed by an immense majority of our people to be con¬ 
 stitutional, wise, and expedient, may not be abruptly abandoned by Congress without a treache¬ 
 rous departure from duty, a shameless dereliction of sacred trust and confidence. To expect it is 
 both extravagant and unkind.”