POLITICAL HISTORY.

soll. Jones, 'D. P. King, T. B. King, Lewis, W. Bfight our battles. Now the men who refused Maclay, R. McClelland, McHenry, Mellvane, Martin,

Miller, Morse, Moseley, Parish, Payne, Relfe, Rock this small installment of justice to our Soldiers well, Root, Rusk, Schenck, Seaman, T. Smith, A. were themselves receiving Eight Dollars per Smith, R. Smith, Stephens, Stewart, Thibodeaux,

Thomasson, Thompson, Tibbats, Trumbo, Went-day for service far less arduous and perilous; worth, White. [All Whigs but the 17 in Italics.] NAYS.-Adons, Atkinson. Bedinger, Benton, with Eight Dollars for every twenty miles Biggs, Black, Boyd, Brinkerhoff, Brockenbrough, travel to and from Washington-many of Broadhead, Burt, Clarke, Collin, Cranston, Cunningham, Daniel, Dargan, Davis, Dobbin, Dockery, them receiving over $100 for one day's riding Dromgoole, Ellsworth, Erdman, Ficklin, Fries, at an expense of $10 or $15. The pay of the Garvin, Grover, Hamlin, Holmes, Houston, Hun

gerford, Hunt, Hunter. Ingersoll, Jenkins, J. H. Members of Congress for this single Session Johnson, J. Johnson, King, Lawrence, Leake, Lev

in, J. J. McDowell, J. McDowell, McGaughey, Mc- amounted to Two Thousand and TwentyKay, Marsh, Morris, Mott, Moulton, Norris, Owen, four Dollars each, beside Milcage, which to (Phelps, Price, Reid, Rhett, Ritter, Roberts, Sawyer,

Seddon, A. D. Sims, L. H. Sims, Simpson, Stanton, some was over $1,000. For the same term Stark weather, Sykes, James Thompson, J. Thom of hard service in Mexico a citizen soldier Ron, Tredway, Vance, Vinton, Willians, Wood,

Woodward, Woodworth, Yancey. [All Loco-Fo-receives less than Sixty Dollars! Ought Scos but the six in Italice.] not this to be reformed? Yet a bill retrenchThe payment of three dollars more per month to privates would have amounted to ing somewhat the enormous allowance to but $75,000 per month or $900,000 a year for Members for traveling to and from Congress, an army of Twenty-Five Thousand men; not (which is now practically twice as high as it (equal to the cost of the California Expedi- was when the present rate was fixed, owing) tion alone. It is in Provisions, Munitions, to the great improvement in facilities for travTransportation, pay of Officers, &c., that the eling,) was lost in this present Congress.Sexpensiveness of War consists. Of the ag. Eight Dollars per day for Congress, seven gregate cost of this Mexican War, not an dollars per month for the soldier-this will Seighth part will be paid to the soldiers who have to be corrected.

THE SUB-TREASURY.

When nearly or quite all the Banks in the him and his party. The succeeding Congress Country suspended Specie Payment in May, promptly repealed the act. It has been re1837, owing directly to commercial bank-enacted in substance by the present Conruptcy and a heavy demand for Specie to go gress, by a strict party vote. It is a long bill, abroad, but primarily to the mischievous pro- providing for new officers to be styled · AsSjects and measures of the Executive with resistant Treasurers' at New-York, Boston, gard to Currency and Finance through seve- Charleston, (S. C.) Detroit and St. Louis, beSral preceding years, Mr. Van Buren called a sides devolving similar duties on the Treasu Special Session of Congress, and recommend-rers of the Mints at Philadelphia and New(ed to it a total Divorce of Bank and State,' Orleans, who are to receive and keep the by collecting, keeping and disbursing the Public Moneys, with each a retinue of Clerks, Public Moneys entirely independent of &c. to handle and count the coin. The As Banks. A majority of this Congress was sistant Treasurers' salaries will amount to but composed of friends of his Administration, $15,000 a year, the cost of refitting the old but they refused to sanction this scheme.-Sub-Treasury vaults and safes is limited to The People declared against it in the Elec-$12,000, and the Clerks will cost a good deal tions; even his own State, so long faithful, more. There are in the bill very minute was swept as by a whirlwind, and returned directions for making deposits, drafts, ex100 Whigs out of 128 Members of Assembly changes, &c. of funds, penalties for exchang He pressed the measure upon Congress ating the funds actually paid in, &c. but the each succeeding Session, encountering defeat gist of the bill is all comprised in these two after defcat, until at last it was carried in sections:

$1840. when the People speedily overwhelmed SEC. 19. And be it farther enacted, That on the

first day of January, in the year 1847, and there-(the Custom-House, there counted out and after, all duties, taxes, sales of public lands, debts

and sums of money accruing or becoming due to accepted; thence conveyed to the Assistant the United States, and also all sums due for post-Treasurer, who counts and accepts it; when ages, or otherwise, to the General Post Office De

partment, shall be paid in gold and silver coin it is put away in vaults, ready to be counted only. out to the next man who presents a Treasury 20. And be it farther enacted, That on the first draft for payment. Allow one man to count day of April, 1847, and thereafter, every officer or

count of the United States, or of the General Post observe that he counts right, and suppose) agent engaged in making disbursements on ac-sixty dollars a minute, with but another to Office, shall make all payments in gold and silver

coin only; and any receiving or disbursing officer the Specie is counted out four times in taking or agent who shall neglect, evade, or violate the it from the Bank to the Custom-House, provisions of this and the last preceding section of this act, shall, by the Secretary of the Treasu- thence to the Sub-Treasury, thence out to ry, be immediately reported to the President of the the drawer, and back to the Bank, and the United States, with the facts of such neglect, evasion, or violation; and also to Congress if in sesmere counting of Thirty Millions per annum sion: and if not in session, at the commencement will engross 6,666 days' work of 10 hours of its session next after the violation takes place. each. And for what?

This is the pith, the essence of the Sub- The exaction of specie at all Post Offices Treasury. Hitherto Collectors, Receivers will be a more general annoyance. A man and Postmasters were authorized to accept hears that a letter has arrived for him at his Sin payments to the Government the notes of Post Office, some miles distant, and he sets such Specie-paying Banks as they chose to out to obtain it. He arrive at the Post Office (receive on their own responsibility, being re-late at night, and, handing out the only kind quired to pay over at all times in Specie or of money he has, says, I want my letter.'its full equivalent. Or, practically, the Col- "I can't give it," replies the law-abiding PostSlector took such Bank notes, and such only, master; "to take a bank note for postage as the Bank in which he was directed to de- would subject me to the loss of my place, if{ posit his receipts would accept and credit nothing worse."-But, Mr. Postmaster, isn't as the equivalent of coin. the Bank just over the way? hasn't it paid) Probably of the Thirty Millions collected its notes promptly these many years? Are in a year by the Government, not One Mil- you not perfectly certain you could get spelion is ever received in coin. Hereafter no-cie for it at 10 to-morrow morning?'——"`` Yes, thing but coin is to be received. The Post- sir; but it is my sworn duty to obey the laws, master who takes a good bill in payment for and I must do it!" So the man must trudge Scarrying a letter will be guilty of a violation home with his bill instead of his letter, unless of law, from and after the 1st of January, he can find some friend to change the former (1847, and subject to removal if not to more for him. Is this worthy of the Nineteenth positive punishment. The money of the Century?

Government is thus to be exclusively Specie We believe the effect of a rigid enforce(its own Shinplasters excepted;) nothing ment of this law would be to wind up or else received after January; nothing paid break down every Bank of issue in the coun(out after April, 1847. The merchant who try, as its originators intended. The moment has $100,000 to pay at the Custom-House the Sub-Treasury is fairly in operation, Bank) now sends a check on the Bank where his Notes will lose the character of currency. money is deposited, certified to be 'good' by That is not practically money which one man (the Cashier or Teller; the Deposit Bank will accept as such, the next one reject, and Scredits the amount to the Government and so on. A Bank Note is truly currency so) charges it to the Bank on which it is drawn, long as every one, understanding its character, and the whole business is dispatched in a readily accepts it as the equivalent of the twinkling. After January he must draw the dollars it calls for. Let one man in ten reject (Specie from his Bank, have it conveyed to it, and, though its intrinsic value is unchang

POLITICAL HISTORY.

ed, its use as currency is impaired if not emplified in 1840-41 in the case of Jesse destroyed. And when our omnipresent and Hoyt, Collector at the Port of New-York, powerful Federal Government shall have in-who managed to abstract, through a period scribed "No Bank Notes received here!" of several months, over $220,000 of the PubSover the doors of its Twenty Thousand Cus-lic money collected by hin, utterly undetom-Houses, Land Offices, Post Offices, &c. tected by the Receiver General. Had Mr.S Sit must be that a great contraction of our cir-Van Buren been reëlected, Hoyt might, for culating medium will follow. The man who aught that appears, have gone on abstracthas twice or thrice been repelled from the ing until his defalcation rivaled Swartwout's. Post Office because he had no specie, will The latter could never have plundered so (say, 'I will have nothing else another time;' much but for the impunity afforded him by Sthe emigrant going West will say, 'Give me the suspension of Specie Payment by the? money that will pay for Public Lands!' and Banks, and the consequent cessation of de(so on. Ultimately, if the law is rigidly en- positing therein. He was now enabled to forced, it must compel a conformity of the run up his defalcation, previously moderate, (People's currency to that of the Government, to the enormous aggregate of a Million and a) Sdriving the Banks into liquidation or suspen- Quarter of Dollars.

sion.

This whole Sub-Treasury business seems?

Quite likely, however, the act never will to be an utter defiance of common sense.Sbe carried fully into effect, but merely held There is not a sane man in America, who if he in terrorem over the Banks to force those in- had income accruing in all the Cities and (terested in them into a servile adhesion to chief towns of the Union, would think of reSthe ruling powers. Thus in 1840-41, after fusing to receive in payment the notes of the the Sub-Treasury had been so pompously specie-paying Banks of those cities and Sproclaimed as a divorce of Bank and State,' towns, or who would refuse to deposit acthe practical operation was this: The law cruing balances in some of them, and trans(said one-fourth of every payment to the Gov-jmit them through the facilities of exchanges ernment must be made in specie, and this thus afforded. There is not a Loco-Foco who was the way it was exacted: A merchant can read who would personally act the Shad $5,000 to pay at the Custom-House for churlish part in which his party ties force duties: so he gave two checks on the Bank him to involve the Government. The mer Stor

the amount, one worded as usual for $3,750 chant who should advertise that he would in and the other for $1,250, 'payable in specie.' no case receive in payment for his goods Of course, the other was just as much paya- the notes of the Bank steadily paying Sble in specie as this; either could be but Specie next door to him and known to neither was demanded in that form; but the be solvent, would be shunned and hooted (intent of the law was held to be satisfied!-as a malignant and narrow-souled being. And it was for this that several Receivers Yet the Government proposes to do this General' were paid Two to Four Thousand in every city and village in the land, treatDollars each per year-for this costly vaults ing the best and the worst Banks prewere constructed and useless clerks hired; cisely alike, including even those from which for this cannon were fired, bonfires lighted it has exacted for itself special and abundant) and innumerable toddies imbibed, the patri- security, and Party compels men to say it is otic swallowers disregarding the damage to all right! Nay: the Government receives) Stheir own constitutions in their joy at the much Revenue in the West which it wishes salvation of their country's. Hurrah for to disburse in the South or on the seaboard, and in such cases good Notes of New-York Sthe divorce of Bank and State!'

The inutility of the Sub-Treasury as a safe- or New-Orleans Banks are clearly worth guard against peculation was strikingly ex-more to it than Specie, which it can only

POLITICAL HISTORY.

transfer at a hundred times the expense ofjit, must violate his oath and forfeit his office. transmitting the bills. Yet even in this case Was there ever before such legislation as> Sthe Receiver who takes a Bank Note, him- this?

self running whatever risk may pertain to'

THE TARIFF OF 1846.

Not prompted by any necessity of the mend the Speeches of Messrs. Webster, Government, for the Revenue was confess-Evans, R. Johnson, Simmons, Davis, Came-( edly ample and our small National Debt ra- ron, Niles, Toombs, Rockwell, Severance, Spidly diminishing when Messrs. Polk and A. Stewart, Winthrop, Seaman, T. Smith, Walker urged and Congress commenced the Dixon, &c. &c. at the late Session of Conoverthrow of the Tariff of 1842—not driven gress, with the more elaborate works familby any popular impulse, for we did not hear iar to Political Economists. We have room (of one single petition to Congress for a se- here but to speak briefly, practically, of the duction of the Tariff-not moved by any pub- Tariff of 1846.

lic embarrassment or distress, for the Coun- This act was confessedly based on a porStry has rarely been more prosperous, busy tion of the President's Message of Decemand contented than it was when Messrs. Polk ber last and the Annual Report of his Sec(and Walker set this ball in motion-the Con-retary, Walker, which deserved the comgress of 1846, under the lash and spur of pliment it received by being printed for Party discipline, has overthrown the Tariff the British House of Lords, by the novelty Sof 1842, and substituted for it one of very of its doctrines if not otherwise. The man different character. It has done this in defi- who could assert in a grave public document Sance of the spirit of Mr. Polk's letter to Kane that a duty on an article imported raises by of Pennsylvania and the unqualified pledges so much the price of that article and also of Sof his electioneering champions in that State the domestic rival built up by the Protection during the canvass of 1844; in defiance of the thus afforded, must have been made for the pledge of Mr. Dallas sustained by all his author of just such a Tariff as has thereby Spast career; in defiance of the reason of been fastened upon us. Every observing Congress, for the Senators who voted for the man who buys five dollars' worth of dry goods bill could not be taunted into justifying it, per annum is able to refute this theory from and virtually admitted that its provisions his own experience. There are not less were indefensible. It was carried by the than One Hundred important articles on resignation of Senator Haywood, who, though which a high Protective duty was imposed a Southern Loco-Foco, execrated the bill and by the Tariff of 1842, in place of a low Revwould have killed it if he could; by the enue duty before, which are nevertheless vote of Mr. Jarnagin, who utterly condemned cheaper since than they previously were. Sthe measure but voted in obedience to the Of there are Cotton-Bagging, Woolen fabexplicit instructions of his Legislature; and rics generally, Pins, Wood-Screws, MousseSby the vote of Mr. Dallas, whose vote out-lin de Laines, Printed Cottons, Floor-Cloths, raged every thing but his ambition. Thus &c. &c. On some of these, as on other arti (is the Tariff of 1846 fastened upon the Coun- cles, there was a temporary advance after try. the Foreign importation had been checked

We have in previous issues of the Whig and before the Home supply had adjusted Almanac pretty thoroughly discussed the itself to the demand, but a few months usuprinciples and traced the history of our Ta-ally sufficed to correct this, reducing the riff legislation. We shall not here go over price of each article to the cost of its producthat ground. To those who would, we com- tion, adding the average rate of profit to

POLITICAL HISTORY.

Soapital. Thus Wool rose in price consider going on in June, 1846. Now if our Woolens ably soon after the Tariff of 1842 had taken are profitably exported to Canada and sold (full effect, but declined again as soon as the there, after paying 15 per cent. duty, in comproduction had had time to adjust itself to petition with the rival fabrics of Great Brithe demand. Iron would seem to be an ex-tain, is it possible that we are paying 40 per Sception to the rule; but the simple truth is cent. more for them than Great Britain would that the immense extension of Railroads and supply us for in the absence of a Tariff ?— other uses of Iron since 1842 has carried up Surely, this question cannot be hard to anthe price all over the world, and not more in swer, nor can it be answered two ways. (this Country than in England or elsewhere. 'But won't 30 per cent. sufficiently proTime has not yet been afforded for the pro-tect our Manufacturers, then?' is the fair reduotion to overtake the still increasing de- tort of a Free Trader. We readily answer, Smand; and Iron would have been higher in yes; 30 per cent. would be Protection >'46 than in '42 if no new duty had been im- enough for most descriptions of American) posed on it. Had we not protected it by the manufactures (not as they once were but as Tariff of '42, the. British price would have they now are,) if they really had so much, ruled still higher than it has done, as we but they have not. Except Liquors, Wines, Shave recently seen a considerable advance Cigars, Cut Glass, and a few manufactures throughout Great Britain upon the tidings of costly foreign Woods, there is nothing of the passage of our new Tariff. Whether which has really thirty per cent. Protection Sthis shall go farther or not will depend di- under this Tariff. Take Woolen Goods for rectly on the ability of our Iron-makers to example: the duty on the most of these is Scontinue their operations under the new act. thirty percent. but on several important de-{ If they or a large portion of them are forced scriptions is lower. But the duty on all deto give up, leaving the Foreign producers scriptions of Woo! is thirty per cent., while undisputed masters of the field, we shall see the British manufacturer obtains his Wool a still farther advance in the Iron of Great wherever he can and pays no duty. Nearly Britain. all descriptions of Drugs and Dyes (hitherto)

Every man who raises Potatoes knows free) are taxed by this Tariff, while the that their price is not enhanced ten cents per British manufacturer gets these also free of (bushel by the duty of that amount affixed by duty. To say that, under these circumstances, the Tariff of 1842, although some Potatoes the American manufacturer has thirty per have every year been imported from Ireland cent. Protection is to state what is grossly Sor Nova Scotia paying that duty. So with untrue.

other articles. Indeed, Mr. Walker's own But there are important branches of our (Report, while it maintains that we pay 40 National Industry to which there is not even percent. more for our home-made Woolens a pretence of affording thirty per cent. Proby reason of the 40 per cent. duty in the tection, including Cotton fabrics of all kinds Tariff of '42, at the same time embodies (colored or printed alike with plain), Silks,) evidence that these same goods were flowing Linens, Books, manufactures of Hemp, NeeSinto Canada, paying 15 per cent. duty there, dles, Blankets, Flannels, &c. &c., charged end competing still with the Woolens of Great with duties ranging from 10 to 25 per cent. Britain, which are admitted at a nominal Yet let any one object to the sweeping duty if any. And Mr. Hale of the Journal of and baleful changes made by this act, and Commerce testifies from personal observation he will be met with the insolent interrogatoSthat this exportation of American Woolen ries, What are the manufacturers grum fabrics, generally of the cheaper but sub-bling about? Isn't thirty per cent. Pro

stantial kinds, (such as poor men wear,')tection enough? If they don't stop their from our Lake perts to Canada, was actively mutterings, we will abolish all duties what