370

ADDRESS OF THE TARIFF CONVENTION.

ADDRESS OF THE

FRIENDS OF DOMESTIC INDUSTRY, Assembled in Convention at New York, Oct. 26, 1831,

TO THE

PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. [Concluded from page 358.]

[DECEMBER

less than one half the price of cassimeres, and are more durable. Cotton flannels formerly imported from China, at from fifty to sixty cents a yard, are now made, of a better quality, here, at from fifteen to twenty cents. Indeed we might enumerate every species of manufac ture in which this material enters as a component part, to show that both in the character of the article and the cheapness of its price, the country has been a great gainer since the enactment of the system that has produced its fabrication.

We ask the attention to another topic. Revulsions To the cotton planters of the United States, the sysin trade are unavoidable: the balance of supply and tem has undoubtedly yielded the most decisive advantademand cannot always be regulated with precision.ges. It has created a certain valuable market for about There is a tendency, growing out of the prosperous one-fifth of her crop, and it has encouraged the concommerce, to push success to an extreme which pro- sumption of large quantities of their staple, in fabrics to duces reaction. To these periods of embarrassment, which it never would have been applied, if the manuof general stagnation, and severe pressure for money, facture had not been carried on in our own country. the United States have been peculiarly subject. We The establishment of cotton mills amongst us has had attribute this in a great measure, to our having depen- the most visible tendency, to induce our manufacturers ded, in so great a degree, for our manufactures, upon to apply cotton to uses which both the policy and the the nations of Europe. Importation is induced more position of foreign manufactures, would have forever frequently by the necessity or hope of the manufactu- forbidden them from adopting. This fact is conspicu rer to find a market, than by actual reference to the ously seen in the application of cotton to sail cloth,and to wants or means of the community. A reduction in the all those articles of heavy clothing, in which it has lateprices of exports, following an excessive importation ly been substituted for wool. It is now manufactured causes a state of exchange which leads to an exporta- into carpets, blankets, cordages, twine, net work, and tion of specie; the moment this exportation touches that a variety of other commodities, that may be said to be portion of the precious metals necessary to sustain the exclusively of American origin. Cotton being a promoney circulation, the operations of the banks become duct of our own soil, we have naturally an interest to embarrassed, and distress and dismay are spread through extend its application to new uses, above what might all classes of the community. be expected from other nations who are mere purchasers of the article, and who are as much, if not more concerned in preserving, and promoting the use of wool and hemp, in the fabrics to which we have applied our cotton.

We believe that the system which furnishes a nation with manufactures, essential to its daily wants, from its own industry, is the best possible security against violent changes in its currency-changes which paralize all industry, and disturb all trade; and we therefore submit to the experience and judgment of the American people, whether the protective system is not, in this particular, more advantageous to the country than that which, after deluging our markets with foreign manufactures, draws from us, in return, not a useless commodity, but the instrument by which our exchanges are performed, the very basis of our bank circulation, the essential principle of commercial confidence.

Mistaken opinions in regard to the effect of the tariff upon the prices of commodities used in the United States, upon which the protective system has been brought to bear, have furnished some popular objections against the wisdom of the policy. It has been said that the effect of a duty is necessarily to increase the price of any article upon which it is laid to the full amount of tax. It would be easy to show, by a minute survey of the whole field of American industry, that, so far from this being true, the invariable operation of the tariff has been to lower the price to the consumer of every article that has been successfully manufactured under the protection. Such a survey would require more detail than the purpose of this address allows, but we propose to examine the operation of the tariff upon some of our most important staples.

In the article of cotton, it is admitted. that our manufacture has arrived at such perfection, in the production of the coarse fabrics, that they are not only furnished at a little more than one half of the cost which the mported articles of the same kind bore a few years ago, but they are produced as cheaply at the present time, as our foreign rivals, under all the excitements of Amer ican competition, are able to furnish them. They have had a constant and increasing demand for several years, for exportation as well as for home consumption. None but the finer qualities are now imported, which are little, if at all affected by the minimum duty, The price of raw cotton has fallen but a cent a pound within the last four years, whilst the price of cotton goods-of sheetings, for instance, of more than three yards to the pound-has fallen nearly four cents a yard within the same period. Satinets, of wool and cotton, are made at

Let us next consider the article of Iron, and we will introduce the notice of it with a quotation from that masterly report of the first secretary of the treasury, which, forty years ago, recommended prohibitory duties, in favor of manufacturers of this article:-"for" says the report, "they are entitled to pre-eminent rank. None are more essential in their kinds, none so extensive in their uses. They constitute, in whole or in part, the implements or the materials, or both, of almost every useful occupation. Their instrumentality is every where conspicuous. It is fortunate for the United States, that they have peculiar advantages, for deriving the full benefit of this most valuable material, and they have every motive to improve it with systematic care. It is to be found in various parts of the United States, in great abundance, and of almost every quality; and fuel, the chief instrument in manufacturing it, is both cheap and plenty." This report, which is a treatise on political economy, at least equal to any thing that has appeared since its publication, states that the average price of iron before the revolution, was about sixty-four dollars per ton, and that at the time of that report it was about eighty dollars. Soon after, it appears to have risen to ninety-five dollars, and in 1814, was as high as one hundred and fifty dollars. After the ineffectual tariff of 1818, which ruined numbers, induced by its vain protection, to make investments in the manufacture of iron, it rose from ninety to one hundred and five dollars per ton. Under the influence of the acts of 1824 and 1828, it has declined to its present prices of from seventy-five to eighty-five dollars per ton, and there is every reason for the confident belief entertained, that if our own market be protected against the formidable and incessant endeavours of the British manufacturers to control it, the price of iron will, before long decline at from fifty to sixty dollars per ton. Such is the irrefutable proof of all recent experience. Cut nails, which in 1816, sold for twelve cents per pound, are now sold for less than half that sum, under the permanent security of five cents per pound, which has given our manufacturers their own market. "The United States, (says Hamilton's report before mentioned) already in great measure, supply

1831.]

ADDRESS OF THE TARIFF CONVENTION.

themselves with nails. About one million eight hundred thousand pounds of nails and spikes, were imported into the United States, in the course of the year ending the 4th of September, 1790. A duty of two cents per pound, would it is presumable, speedily put an end to so considerable an importation. And it is in every view proper that an end should be put to it." Bar Iron which sold at Pittsburgh in 1829, at $122, sells there now at $95. Castings which were $63, are now 50 per ton. Such are the practical results, proving the operations of the tariffs on the markets for iron. The duty by the law of 1816, was so inadequate as to cause nothing but ruin to those concerned, and enhancement of price to the consumer. The act of 1818 was some amelioration; the acts of 1824 and 1828, which increased the duty, decreased the price. Hammered bar iron, under a duty of twenty-two dollars and forty cents a ton, is at a lower price than when under a duty of nine dollars a ton, and improved in quality from five to ten per cent, by the greater care and skill which more extensive investment has naturally created under more certain protection. The efforts of the English manufacturers to destroy the American manufacture of iron, and possess themselves of our market, have occasioned extensive bankruptcies amongst them in England, and reduced the price of iron considerably be low the cost of manufacture; insomuch that a convention of iron manufacturers, recently held there, resolved to reduce the quantity made, twenty per cent. throughout the United Kingdoms. With the control of our market, they would infallibly regulate both the price, and the quantity of the iron in this countrythirty-one establishments of which have appeared in Western Pennsylvania alone, since the last tariff acts.

371

and fashions, may be clothed with woollen, cotton, fur, and leather fabrics of their own country, better and cheaper than either could have been obtained abroad, if the tariff had never been enacted. The greatest mistakes prevail in this respect; it is continually said, that hats, coats, boots and other articles of dress, are dearer here than elsewhere. Such is not the case with all those who are independent of foreign fashions. Those who enjoy superior wealth, and study superior elegance, are at liberty to gratify their caprice, at that additional expense which such a gratification costs in all countries-in none more than in Great Britain, where the opulent and noble are in the habit of paying more extravagantly for French, Asiatic and other luxuries, than some of our opulent citizens choose to pay, in like manner, for luxuries imported from abroad. Whilst we assert that it has been the effect of the protective system, to benefit the consumers by giving them manufactures cheaper than they had them before, we are willing to admit that prices have had a correspondent fall in the same articles abroad; but this fall of price abroad has been the result of the competition of American labor. It is impossible to advert to the fact, that the United States export to foreign markets, six times the quantity of domestic manufactures that they exported in 1820, and at present furnish incomparably the largest share of the home demand, without perceiv. ing the tendency of such a competition to reduce the price of the same articles amongst all those nations who aim in supplying us.

But we hold it to be a common error, to consider the comparative cheapness of the foreign and domestic commodity, a test of the value of the system. Even if it were true, that the domestic product were not redu. ced in price, and were to be procured only at a higher cost than the foreign, still the benefit of the system would be found in the fact, that it enables the domestic consumer to afford the higher price for the manufac. ture, and thereby to furnish himself on better terms than he could have done when obliged to depend upon the foreign imported commodity-that, in other words, the increase of price, if it has taken place, cannot be called a tax upon the consumer, if the same system which has increased the price, has also increased his means of paying it. That this increased ability to pay has occurred to a most beneficial extent, is evident in the invigorated condition of our agriculture in the last three or four years, during which period the value of the labor of the farmer, and with it the value of his land, it is well known, has risen some twenty or thirty per cent. This augmentation in the value of agricultural labor and capital, can be ascribed to no other cause, than to the increase of the manufacturing classes, and to the rapid growth of our home market under the protective system. During this period, there have been no wars to create a demand abroad for our grain, but on the contrary, all the producing nations have been exerting their

The influence of protection upon wool, while it has been most beneficial upon the farming states, has had no tendency that we are aware of, to injure the plantation states. The number of sheep in the United States, is computed at about twenty millions: and their increase at about five millions since the act of 1828, which gave a great impulse to the stock. The farmers of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and other wool-grow. ing states, have an interest in this national property, taken at fifty-five cents per lb. nearly equal to the capital of the plantation states, in the cotton crop of this year, reckoning at thirty millions of dollars. There is no doubt that within three years to come, the farming capital in wool, will be more valuable than the plantatation capital in cotton. Without protecting duties, American wool would be reduced one-half in quantity and in price. The large flocks which now cover the immense and inexhaustable pastures of the United States, most of them more or less of the fine Spanish breeds, would be again slaughtered, as has been heretofore the case, for want of due protection, and this great capital in fleece sacrified to that of cotton, with enormous loss to one interest, and with no possible advantage to the other. For like every thing else, wool-industry to the utmost, and maintaining a rivalry against len goods have fallen from twenty to twenty.five per cent, since the last tariff. The immediate effect of that act, by calling a large number of additional clothiers into active enterprise, was to cause a decline in prices, ruinous to many of those before engaged in the occupation. Under the influence of the improvement in the price of wool, woollen manufacturers have rallied again, but, at least as respects them, the charge of monopolizing prices is a cruel mockery. The advantages of the tariff, in its operation upon wool, have thus far been confined almost exclusively to the farming interest; the manufacturers have yet all their way to win, and the effect of that competition, which is the result of protection, cannot be known until it has had longer time for operation.

The finest cotton and woollen manufactures are not much made in the United States, but we may assert without fear of contradiction, that nine-tenths of the American people, who do not affect foreign luxuries

our own citizens, which, would have visited them with the most disasterous consequences, if they had not found a steady and valuable market at home. The fact, too, that agricultural products have risen whilst manufactur ed goods have fallen, furnishes the best proofs that the fall of prices is to be mainly attributed to the competition of domestic labor.

The loudest complaints of oppression procced from the South, particularly from South Carolina; but that these complaints are not owing to the tariff acts, is unquestionably proved by the fact, that their public press, their memorials to congress, and other mediums of complaint, were as much burthened with them before those acts, as they have been since. In the acquisition of the extensive and fertile territories annexed to the United Sates, by the purchase of Louisiana, the lands and property of the plantation states, could not fail to be depreciated by a vast accession of lands, at least as fertile, for all similar purposes. But it is inconceivable

372

ADDRESS OF THE TARIFF CONVENTION.

how a steady market for at least two hundred thousand bales of cotton a year, liable to a fluctuation from foreign influence, can be injurious to the cotton growing states; and, certainly, is the inhabitants of the less exuberant and more industrious latitudes of the central and eastern states, were not, from the influence of climate, or some other cause, less liable to excitement, and less addicted to complain than their southern brethren, they have had much greater cause for it.

The article of sugar is a production of the planting states, receiving the full benefit of the protecting system. If any application of the system operates as a tax on consumption, it would apply to the duty on sugar. It is true, the cotton planters of South Carolina will not admit, that protection to the cultivation of sugar is any offset to their own fancied oppressions, but it is apparent that the lands and capital devoted to the cultivation of the sugar cane, are so much of both withdrawn from the cultivation of cotton, relieving the culture from the effect of over production, the only evil which it has any reason to fear.

[DECEMBER

in the mean time, diffuses competency and comfort
amongst large numbers of the laboring classes of the
community.
The policy of the protecting system is happily and
amply illustrated in the growth and prosperity of the
United States. The union teems with proofs of its wis-
dom. All that Hamilton's masterly report predicted of
its benefits, has been unfolded, and its progress beyond
the most sanguine anticipation. All the objections re-
futed in his argument, have disappeared in experience.
The antagonists of the system, not long since declared
that it would infallibly diminish, if not destroy the re-
venue, and compel a resort to loans and taxes, for the
support of government-their present complaint is that
revenue is excessive. Redundant importations, some
year ago, imposed the necessity of a loan; the manufac-
turing establishments now spreading throughout the
United States, sustain their agriculture, have revived
their commerce, have vastly increased their coasting
trade, and domestic exchanges, and have mainly con-
tributed in an abundance of the precious metals; they
are the stablest pledges of independence and permanent
peace, and the most accessible objects of taxation and
productive resources in case of need.

The bread stuffs, lumber, and nearly all the other staples of all the grain growing states are excluded from European markets by prohibitory duties. Whilst the export of cotton has quadrupled, that of breadstuffs has It was said, that high duties would demoralize the comdiminished in a much greater ratio, with relation to the mercial character of the United States, and the evils of population of the states that produce them. If instead smuggling are still insisted on, and depicted in the most of spending their time in unavailing complaints, they prominent colors. We know of no smuggling; nor do had not conformed to circumstances, and turned their we believe that it exists to any considerable extent. It attention to manufactures, their grieveances would have is true, frauds have been practised upon the revenue been infinitely greater than any of which the southern laws to a degree that demands the notice of government; states have ever complained. Nothing could relieve but we are happy to have this opportunity to bear testithe farming interests of the middle states, but their own mony to the high and honorable character of our mermanufactures and the manufactures of the eastern states. chants, and to say, that where frauds have been discovThey alone supply that market which Europe denies. ered, they have had their origin with those, who are In addition to the incalculable consumption of bread-alien to our clime, our laws, and all the considerations stuffs, by the manufacturers of the grain-growing states, connected with our welfare. They are frauds that efwhat is equivalent to a million of barrels of their bread- fect, comparatively, but a small portion of that vast stuffs, is imported every year into the eastern states; a amount of labor that owes its support to the protective relief, without which, the susceptibility of these states, system. would have been tried to a degree of endurance far be- It was affirmed, that this system would undermine yond that exacted from their brethren of the south. It commerce and ruin navigation, but they flourish and cannot escape observation, that while their sufferings prosper beyond all expectation. It was to create a moare announced in most eloquent language, and in unin-nied aristocracy! if aristocracy be possible with our intermitting remonstrance, yet there has been so little specification of the supposed causes, that it is denied by many, among themselves, that they suffer at all. There is even good reason to believe, that within the last five years, the interest on planting capital has been more productive to the owner, than the interest of the same amount of capital employed to manufactures.

The states of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio have invested a capital of enormous amount, which may be reckoned as at least fifty millions, within the last ten years, in what are called internal improvements, canals, rail-ways and other facilities of transportation. This capital depends entirely upon domestic industry for its fruits. It would be a dead loss to four millions of people who have expended it, and might as well be abandoned at once, without the protective duties of domestic industry for its returns. Foreign commerce can yield it little or no service; and to destroy those guards which secure to it the home market, would be to render it altogether a useless expenditure. Foreign commerce would in this way, lose one of its most productive

resources.

In our review upon the operation of the tariff, upon the various interests of the several states, it must never be lost sight of,,that the one-fifth of the cotton crop which is consumed at home, for which we may estimate the sum paid at six millions of dollars, is, in the course of a very short time, worked up by manufacture, to at least thirty millions of dollars, which is the worth of the raw material wrought into the various articles produced by manipulation: thus one-fifth of the crop of cotton manu factured, becomes as valuable as the whole cotton crop, in the short space of six months after its purchase; and,

stitutions, it certainly has not found an abiding place amongst manufacturers. It was to inflict a class of paupers upon our population: no such class exists among the industrious. It is still denounced as taxing the many for the benefit of the few: but the many, with the power in their hands to change it, are its sturdy friends and supporters, proving that they, at least deem themselves gainers by the system; whilst the few, on the oth er hand, never cease to tell us of the grievance of being subject to the majority.

A rapid increase of population, dwellings, culture, of the comforts of life and the value of property, wherever manufactures prevail, bespeak their capacity to diffuse happiness and wealth. The new industry that has been brought into existence, has induced the consumption of increased amounts of the productions of the land, and has added to the prosperity of every class of agricultu rists. During the last six years, under the benefit of protection; four hundred sugar plantations have been added to the three hundred previously existing in the state of Louisiana, which now supplies two thirds of the demand of the whole Union. In the mean time, the price has been continually falling, and there is every reason to believe that, within a short period, besides furnishing the home market, our planters will have a surplus for exportation.

Our warehouses, workshops, and stores, abound with excellent and elegant wares of American fabrication, almost excluding those from abroad. Silver and plated ware, the richest glassware, porcelain, household furniture and pleasure carriages, every article of woollen and cotton clothing, copper, brass, and tin wares, hardwares, arms of all sorts, saddlery, and every thing else

1831.1

ADDRESS OF THE TARIFF CONVENTION.

made of leather, drugs paints, and oils, tools, utensils, and implements of all sorts, every kind of machinery, from the smallest instrument of cutlery, to a steam engine; nearly every thing that can be made of wood; iron, wool, cotton, glass, furs, and precious metals, whatever ministers to comfort, and most of the luxuries: all the substantial and ornamental means of habitation, subsistence, transportation by land and water, clothing and defence, are to be seen in every street, of every town, in every stage of process and transition, from the raw materials, which are abundant and excellent, to the removal of the finished articles to distant places of purchase. The principal commerce among the several states of the Union, is employed in the transportation of domestic manufactures, and managed by domestic exchanges, which have increased above all computation within the last few years. They ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, and promote the general welfare, by bonds stronger than any political ties; infinitely stronger than armies or navies. Protection to these resources is, as it were the providence of our political being, ever guarding the industrious citizen, while adding to the nation's wealth. Without that Providence not a laborer, nor an artizan, whatever his calling, but would be straitened and brought to ruin. Distress would be intense and universal. Stop the loom and the plough, would work in vain; the ship would be unfreighted, and universal stagnation would succeed to the present healthful activity of our land. Is there an American who would raise his ruthless hand against the system which prevents such a calamity? who would recolonize his country from an unnatural disgust for its own production and morbid preference for those of Europe? who would bow before the woolsack of England, but spurn the golden fleece of his own suil?

Aversion to manufactures has engendered of late,

bitter local prejudices in parts of those states in which they do not flourish. Not long ago, their promotion was in universal favor. When the venerable survivor of the framers of the constitution, took the oath of fidelity to it, on commencing his illustrious presidency, the whole nation thought that he proved his patriotism by being clothed in a suit of American broad-cloth. To doubt the constitutionality of protecting manufactures was not then conceived. Even to question the policy of promoting them, was limited to very few. The statesmen and the patriots of the South, were among the foremost to vindicate both.

373

whose benefit it was imposed, declines to cultivate the article?

By a special resolution of this convention, an inquiry was directed into the moral influence of our manufactures;-in compliance with which we feel authorized to say, in a word, that the imputations sometimes cast upon the morals of manufacturing communities, have proved, according to the experience of this country, to be without the slightest foundation. On the contrary, it is believed, that the moral and religious education of those employed in manufactures is, at least equal, if not superior, to that of other classes of the community.

In concluding this address, we would take occasion to observe, that the present posture of the affairs of the United States, impresses upon us the necessity of declaring what we believe to be the sentiment of the friends of American industry, in reference to a great question which must in a short time, occupy the attention of congress. Up to this period, the revenue of the government has not exceeded its wants. The debt has required a system of duties, that would supply at least ten millions of dollars every year towards its extinguishment. That debt, under the present course of liquidation, will soon cease to exist. The nation will then naturally expect some deduction of duties. Participating in the common feeling on this subject, we cannot close this address, without respectfully submitting to public consideration, the expediency of applying that reduction to such commodities, as are incapable of being brought within the scope of the protective system; holding it, as we do, to be indispensable to the best interests of the American people, that that system should be sustained and preserved, without diminution, in its application to every branch of domestic industry that may be benefitted by its influence.

Thus, fellow-citizens, we have submitted to your consideration our views of the construction upon the great question of protection. If it be the true one, you will sanction and sustain it: if it be otherwise, let it be rejected; for the constitution is the supreme law.

We have also, submitted our view of the true policy of this country. We have stated and urged those principles, on which the system of protection rests, which we believe to be supported by the maxims of a sound philosophy, the experience of mankind, and our own. It remains with you to determine, whether that system of protecting your own industry, under which you have long advanced, and are now prospering, shall

The general pacification of 1815, exposed our mar-be continued or abandoned; whether you will hold fast ket, to the overwhelming force of English capital and to that which your experience has proved to be good, or skill, with more fearful odds than we had to contend yield yourselves the victims of rash and untried theory. against in the hostilities then closed with Great Britain. That nearly five hundred of our fellow citizens should The inflexibility of her restrictive system, and the ex- convene, from sections of the country, more than five uberant resources of our country for manufactures, alone hundred miles apart, to consult on these engrossing subenable us to withstand the great influx of our fabrics,jects, is itself an argument of the deep solicitude felt and constrained us to protect our market by that sys-by the country at large, in their discussion. To have tem, which has led to our present prosperity. It is the cotton growing states who would subvert this prosperity, and lay us once more prostrate before the power of our rival? Those states, who, for the article of cotton, enjoyed a duty which did not merely promote, but absolutely created its culture? a tax upon all other states, which was represented as a grievance by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, in the very infancy of our government? a tax which diverted labor and capital into new channels for the exclusive benefit of those states, at the expense of all the rest? a tax which had not the remotest connexion with the revenues of the country, but was imposed merely for protection? Is it, above all others, the state of South Carolina that can complain of a protective impost, while she enjoys a heavy duty on indigo, which she has ceased to produce, and which, therefore, all the manufacturing states pay, under circumstances aggravated by the fact, that while they are obliged to submit to this tax on an article in dispensable to their manufactures, the very state for

separated without vindicating them, would have been a desertion of the trust committed to us. Their impor tance, required that fulness of consideration, which an enlightened and reflecting people have a right to demand. It has been our study, to adhere to the utmost accuracy in our statement of facts, and to exercise the most perfect candor in our arguments. We therefore, invite the strictest scrutiny to what we submit, whilst we are sensible that, with the advantage of more time, than the session of the convention has afforded, it might have been presented in a more finished form. Deeply impressed with the gravity of the subject, and the mo mentous aspect of our national concerns, we trust that our language has never departed from that tone of conciliation which becomes citizens of the same country, differing from their brethren upon great questions of national policy.

But let us bear constantly in mind, that the Union, the happiness, the peace and power of our beloved country depends on its domestic industry, without

PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE-STATE OF THE WEATHER.