USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 30
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per cent advance on the cost of the raw materials. This advance is the price of British produce, British labor, and the interest on British capital ; we have thus bought British wheat at $1.50 per bushel, and British corn at $1.00 in the shape of manufactured goods, while we have sold our wheat at 25 cents and our corn at 10 cents per bushel ; or in other words, they have bought our wheat at 25 cents, and sold it back to us in goods at $1.50 per bushel, to "keep up the balance of trade." But for the last four years together the balance of trade has been $18,000,000 against us in favor of England. (See Mr. Ells- worth's report.)
TARIFF OF 1842.
THE censures of the writer of the pamphlet on the subject of the tariff of 1842 have quite as frequently fallen upon his friends as his supposed enemies, for whom they were intended. The writer says, "In vain do we look into this bill for protection to the farmer of Indiana. We beg pardon, to preserve appearances of impartiality, it is most graciously provided in this bill, that any beef, pork, wheat, flour, oats and corn imported from abroad shall pay a duty, as if we were afraid that the half-starved of foreign countries could spare these articles, send them here and under-sell us. * * * This is nothing but the mockery of protection to the farmer." This is certainly a happy hit at the tariff of 1842, even if it should not be so complimentary to the candor of the writer, for he well knew at the time he penned the article, that the tariff of 1842, as well as that of 1828, contained the very same provisions, and that they were merely copied into the tariff of 1842. Let us place this matter in a position from which the writer can not escape.
We copy from the tariff of 1824: "On which wheat, 25 cents per bushel ; oats, 10 cents per bushel ; wheat flour, 50 cents per ewt .; pota- toes, 10 cents per bushel." A motion was made to strike these items from the bill, and upon the yeas and nays it was decided in the nega- tive-Andrew Jackson, John II. Eaton, Richard M. Johnson, and Martin Van Buren, voting against striking out. (See Senate Journal, 1824.) Was this " the mockery of protection to the farmer?" Again : The writer says : "Mark the deception ; it is provided in another part of the same bill, that all cotton cloth which is not worth more than twenty cents a square yard, should be valued up to twenty cents ; now there is a great deal of that article that costs only from six to eight cents to make it at the factory, and this is what is generally used, especially by the laboring part of the people ; and yet by this unjust law this is valued as high as the superior article, that is, at twenty
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cents a yard." This statement is made by the writer as if these min- imums on imported goods were first introduced by the tariff of 1842. Why did he not inform the people, that they were introduced by Mr. Calhoun, in 1816, to prevent fraud on the revenue ? Why did he not inform his readers, that in every tariff since the same principle had been maintained ? Why not give the following extraet from the tariff of 1824? " That all unbleached and uncolored cotton twist, yarn, or thread, the original cost of which shall be less than sixty cents per pound, shall be deemed and taken to have eost sixty cents per pound, and shall be charged with duty accordingly." The same principle was adopted as to woollen and cotton goods ; and yet, strange to tell, this high protective tariff, containing all these odious provis- ions in the eyes of the writer of the pamphlet, was passed by the votes of Andrew Jackson, John II. Eaton, Richard M. Johnson, Thomas H. Benton, and Martin Van Buren. The same principle is enaeted in the high tariff of 1828, the bill of " abominations " spoken of by the writer of the pamphlet ; all this he unfortunately forgets, as well as he does the very unimportant fact that the tariff of 1828, the highest tariff that ever was enacted in this country, containing the same odious principle, was passed by the votes of Martin Van Buren, Richard M. Johnson, John H. Eaton, Thomas HI. Benton, Silas Wright, Jr., James Buchonan, and William Hendricks. So much for these important discoveries in the tariff of 1842. But the writer has made another equally candid charge against the action of the Senate, pending the progress of the bill. He says : "On the 2d day of August, 1842, Mr. Tappan, one of the Senators from Ohio, moved to amend the bill, by providing that whenever our corn, flour, and salted provisions, should he received free of duty into any nation of Europe, that the President should make proclamation of the fact to the people of the United States, and that three months afterward, the articles made in that nation should be admitted into the United States at only twenty per cent tax on the value. Every Whig Senator voted against the amend- ment, including the Senators from Indiana, Smith and White; every Democratic Senator voted for it." Here again the memory of the writer, or rather his industry, failed him before he got through with his story. We will finish it for his edification. The vote he speaks of was given in the Senate as in committee of the whole, the amendment was re-offered in the Senate, when Mr. Evans, of Maine, read the treaty of 1815. between the United States and Great Britain, showing that if the most inconsiderable nation of Europe should let our articles, enumerated in the amendment of Mr. Tappan, into their ports duty free, that very act, by the operation of the treaty, would let the whole
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of the British imports into this country at the 20 per cent. ad valorem. So soon as the point was made, Mr. Wright requested Mr. Tappan to withdraw his amendment, and he did so with the approbation of the whole Senate. So much for that discovery, which was long since pub- lished in the State Sentinel, and exposed in the Indiana Journal.
THE SALT DUTY.
The writer of the pamphlet has selected the duty levied on salt, by the tariff of 1842, as especially objectionable. He is welcome to all the capital he can make out of the salt question. But hear him. He says : "Salt, that prime necessary of life, which the wealthy inhabit- ant of the eity only uses on his table, but which the Western farmer uses so extensively to save his pork, and heef, and bacon, and to salt his stoek, this article even in tax-oppressed England is admitted tax free ; it is there regarded, like the air we breathe, as an absolute neees- sary. But in this land of liberty, where we have so many stump pro- fessions for the poor, the poor man's salt is sorely taxed ; aye, taxed by this boasted tariff, this poor man's best friend." Would not the reader be led to believe, from the above, that the tariff of 1842 was the first aet that levied a duty on imported salt ? Such, certainly, was the impression the writer intended to make: How then stands the ease ? Under the tariff of 1816 a duty of twenty cents per bushel was eol- lected on imported salt ; by the tariff of 1824 the same duty was con- tinued ; and this aet, passed by the votes of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Richard M. Johnson, John II. Eaton, and Thomas H. Benton. When the tariff of 1828 was under consideration, an attempt was made to modify this duty. Mr. Chandler. of Maine, in the Sen- ate, moved on the 6th of May, to amend the bill as follows : " That in lieu of the duties now imposed by law on imported salt (20 cents per bushel), from and after the 30th day of June, 1829, the duties on imported salt shall be fifteen cents per bushel weighing fifty-six pounds, until the 30th day of June, 1839, and after that day the duty shall be ten cents per bushel weighing fifty-six pounds." Upon this amendment, striking off one-fourth of the duty on salt at once, and one-half after the 30th of June, 1839, the following Senators voted in the negative : Martin Van Buren, Richard M. Johnson, Mahlon Dick- erson, and I'm. Hendricks. The salt duty was left at twenty cents the bushel, and from that time until it fell under the operation of the compromise aet, it stood at twenty eents. Such was the tax levied and collected upon this article during the whole of the administration of General Jackson, while the Democrats held the Government, except as it was modified by the Compromise Aet. Had the writer of the
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pamphlet forgotten all this? That is the most charitable view of the subject, or he surely would not have omitted so important a part of the history of the salt duty.
A word as to the act of 1842, at which the writer of the pamphlet looks with such holy horror. That act levies a duty of eight cents on the article-less than one-half as much as Gen. Jackson, Mr. Van Buren, Col. Johnson, and Wm. Hendricks had decided was just and proper, and the Indiana Senators, " Smith and White," voted to strike that out, and make salt free, while Mr. Wright, the immediate repre- sentative of the State and views of Mr. Van Buren, voted to retain it in the hill. Why did not the writer of " facts " state these facts, if he desired to give all the facts to the people of Indiana? The writer complains that we have to pay a high duty on foreign salt, to salt our beef and pork to send abroad, as the domestic salt will not answer. Surely, we pay no duty at all, if the doctrines of the writer of the pamphlet, and his school of politicians, be true -" The consumer pays the duty." This is his position ; let him see how it cuts up by the roots his salt tax, so far as it applies to salted provisions not consumed in Indiana, or the State or country where they are packed.
A " HIGH TARIFF DEFEATS ITS OBJECT,"
Says the author of the pamphlet. Its object is revenue, he says : and that object is defeated by high duties. He admits that the tariff of 1828, was the highest that has ever been passed in this country ; and he tells us that the Compromise Act was passed to bring down the rate of duties to the revenue standard. Was it because we collected too much, or too little revenue ? Let him answer. Mr. Calhoun con- tends that it was the high tariff of 1828, that not only paid off the National Debt, but was the cause of an overflowing Treasury. The fact is beyond controversy ; that we had money enough in the Treasury and to spare. under this high tariff; while under the low pressure, ad valorem, twenty per cent duties of the Compromise Aet, which is the favorite of the writer of the pamphlet, our Treasury was empty, the Government bankrupt, our industry paralyzed, and our produce with- out a market. These are "facts for the people." So much for that objection to protection.
" DEMOCRATIC POLICY AS TO A TARIFF."
" In the first place it is to reduce the National Expenses," says the writer. Precisely so, we say. That is certainly the doctrine they preach, but it is not the "policy " they practice. Unfortunately for the writer and his party, we have some evidence on that point also,
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and we are prepared to compare notes. How stands this matter ? We presume it will scarcely be questioned, that the administration of Mr. Van Buren was a Democratic administration in the modern aceepta- tion of that torm ; and we are prepared freely to admit, that the admin- istration of Mr. Adams was purely a Whig administration. We will therefore take these administrations, by which to test this preaching es. practice. This will of course be entirely satisfactory to the writer of the pamphlet.
NATIONAL EXPENDITURES.
Four years of the administration of Mr. Adams, $95,805,446. Four years of the administration of Mr. Van Buren, $142,561,945. So that the Democrats in four years reduced the expenditures of a Whig administration from $95,805,446 to $142,561,945, and still " the Demo- cratic policy as to a tariff is in the first place to reduce the National Expenses." These are facts for the people. The achministration of Mr. Tyler is spoken of by the writer, as being a Whig administration ; this is doing us over-much kindness. Mr. Tyler is one of the " mod- ern Democratie " candidates for the Presidency, diselaiming all eonnee- tion whatever with the Whig party, and standing in direct opposition to their measures. We claim no share or lot in his administration, so far as the executive department is concerned ; but we do claim for a Whig Congress, however, a very great reduction of the "National Expenses " from those of Mr. Van Buren's administration, as the offi- cial reports will finally prove.
TREASURY NOTES AND PUBLIC DEBT.
The author of the pamphilet is exceedingly anxious to charge upon the Whigs, the issue of Treasury notes to sustain the Government. He seems to have forgotten altogether that they were resorted to by the administration of Mr. Van Buren, to keep its sinking fortunes afloat until its elosc ; notwithstanding Mr. Van Buren found a National Debt of only $1,879,312, and eash in the Treasury, when he came into power, $18,606,792, and received in the course of his term, the dues from the Bank of the United States, and from the merchant's sus- pended bonds of New York, amounting together, over and above the whole National Debt, to about $25,728,480, besides all the ordinary receipts from customs at a high rate of duty, and $19,165,289, from publie lands, and yet he expended all this and left a debt, as offi- cially reported, of $6,488,748, but which did not include the annuities payable by the Government, or the outstanding appropriations. Gen. Howard, in his Zion letter, is conelusive as to the issue of these Treas- ury notes, and that they are the Democratie currency. He says : "I
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was in favor of Treasury notes, and voted in favor of issuing them, when I was in the last Congress. I am yet of the opinion that they furnished, and would continue to furnish, a most valuable currency, and with one modification would enter the general circulation, and would be a valuable medium in the transactions of society. I refer to their denomination ; they should be reduced so as to enter into the smaller dealings." The writer of the pamphlet in his zeal to charge the Whigs with creating a National Debt, says: "In less than two years, the National Debt has been increased by them, to about $16,000, 000!" Now, it so happens that this statement requires proof. That there was a National Debt to the specified amount, may be admitted without touching the question between us; the eharge is, that it was created by the Whigs. This we deny. We say that Mr. Van Buren expended over $25,000,000 in his four years, more than the ordinary revenues of the Government; that he left an officially reported debt of $6,488,748, for his successor to pay, besides leaving a considerable amount of annuities to pay to Indian tribes, as well as a large amount of outstanding appropriations to provide for ; that he left the tariff at the lowest minimum of the Compromise Act, producing much less revenue than was received from imposts during his administration ; and, what was worse than all, he left the currency deranged and depre- ciated, and the industry of the people paralyzed, so that they were unable to contribute to the National Treasury as they had done before. The Whigs have created no National Debt ; they found one which was rapidly increasing under the administration of Mr. Van Buren, which they have done all in their power to arrest, but have been prevented by obstacles and circumstances, over which they have had no control, and for which they are in no wise, responsible. This article, like oth- ers, we are compelled to close without going so much into detail in this matter as we could desire ; but we have said enough to show that there are two sides to this matter, of a National Debt and Treasury notes.
REMEMBER
That " The mandate went forth in the message to Congress of Gen. Jackson, December, 1829, to destroy the eredit and financial system of the United States. The first experiment resulted in the inordinate multiplication of irresponsible State banks, and the consequent excess of their paper led to the issues of most of the stocks of the Western and South-Western States, and to the creation of the greatest portion of their present heavy indebtedness. For we can not be too often reminded of what shall never be forgotten, that during the ten years of 1820 to 1830, while a National Bank existed, only twenty-two
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State banks were chartered with $22,000,000 of capital; whereas, from 1830 to 1840, during the period of the State bank system, the authors of which now call themselves the supporters of a specie cur- rency, and charge all the misfortunes and embarrassments of the country to the policy of their opponents, three hundred and forty- eight new banks were created, with $268,000,000 of capital. During the years 1835 and 1836, and part of 1837, while the system was at its hight, more than one-half of the whole amount of existing State bonds was created, comprising nearly the whole of the stocks of the States whose situation is becoming too critical." All this was done under the reign of our opponents, and now they desire to make the people helieve that the condition of the country is chargeable to the Whigs.
IS IT TRUE ?
The writer of the pamphlet puts the following inquiry to the peo- ple : " What would have been Mr. Webster's course on the tariff bill passed at the last session of Congress in 1842, if he had been there as a member from Indiana? He would have found scarcely a single article raised or made in our State which is protected by that bill." This was no doubt intended as a censure of the vote given in favor of the bill by the Representatives from Indiana. So far as they are concerned, it is not very important to attempt a justification of the vote, nor is it of any deep interest to the people of Indiana to know how Mr. Webster would have voted as one of the Representatives of Indiana : but as the principles maintained by us are involved in the interrogatory, it may be proper to inquire whether it is true, in point of fact, that " scarcely a single article raised or made in our State is protected by that bill." Such statements should not be lightly made, and if made, should, at least, be substantially true. As this is an issue of fact between us and the writer of the pamphlet, to be decided by the people, we give the following extracts from the tariff of 1842, and then leave the reader to decide whether " a single article raised or made in our State is protected by that bill."
EXTRACTS FROM THE TARIFF OF 1842.
" On unmanufactured hemp, $40 per ton ; on ready-made clothing, ete., an ad valorem duty of fifty per cent .; on tanned sole or band leather, six cents per pound; on all upper leather not otherwise specified, eight cents per pound ; on vessels of cast iron, one eent and a half per pound ; on all skins, five dollars per dozen ; on men's boots and bootees of leather, wholly or partially manufactured, one dollar and twenty-five cents per pair ; men's shoes and pumps, thirty cents
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per pair; women's shoes or slippers, twenty-five cents per pair ; on rifles, two dollars and fifty cents each; on axes, adzes, hatch- ets, etc., thirty per cent ad valorem; fur hats, caps, ete., thirty- five per cent ad valorem ; hats of wool, ete., eighteen cents each ; on bank, folio, quarto, posts of all kinds, and letter and bank note paper, seventeen cents per pound, etc .; on foolseap, imperial, medium, etc., writing paper, fifteen cents per pound, etc." This list might be greatly extended, but we are content to submit the issue upon these items. Is scarcely a single article of them " raised or made in our State ?" If not, then the writer of the pamphlet is correct in that statement. But suppose it were true that the bill did not protect " scarcely a single article that was raised or made in this State," would that render it obnoxious to the censure of the writer? Have we no interest in protecting the manufactures of other States? Have we not material, water-power, and other facilities for manufacturing our raw materials, that they have in any other State, and is the aet merely to operate on manufactories in existence at the time the bill passed ? Is it not rather to encourage capitalists to make investments in that business, and by the domestic competition to bring the articles of domestic use to the lowest price to the consumer? It is true that Indiana is most essentially an agricultural State, capable of producing almost any given quantity of agricultural products ; still she abounds in the material of a manufacturing State also. But suppose she was never to manufacture a single article, is it not a desirable object to give to the farmer a ready, safe, and good home market, for the sur- plus produce of his farm ? Give him a market for his produce, and he will prosper. We deny that we go for protection for the benefit of the manufacturer alone, and contend that the farmer, the person who raises the raw material upon which the manufacturer operates, and who furnishes the corn, beef, pork, flour, and other produce upon which he subsists, and which he is prepared to receive in exchange for manufactured articles instead of money, is quite as much benefited by protection as is the manufacturer. The views of the writer of the pamphlet, if founded in fact, it is submitted, are entirely too limited for the subject. We repeat what we said on another occasion, that " There is not a country on the face of the globe where the different interests are so dependent upon, and useful to, each other as they are in the United States. It really seems that Nature's God had des- tined this great nation to remain forever one in interest, one in prin ciple, and one in glory-the climate, the soil, the products, in a word, the interest of the whole, and the interests of the parts, all point to the same great vital principle, Union, now and forever. The South
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and South-West, from climate and soil, are especially adapted to the culture of rice, cotton, tobacco, and indigo, and the manufacture of sugar and molasses from the canc; these products will always be demanded for the consumption of the other sections of the Union. The Middle States abound in mineral wealth, which they are prepared o manufacture in sufficient quantities to supply the consumption of the whole Union. The East and the North have the power, the capi- tal, and the manufacturing skill, to prepare the raw staple' of the South, as well as the wool of the other sections, for the use of the whole ; while the West, the fertile West, can furnish a supply of flour, corn, beef, and pork, to feed all the operatives of the Eastern, Northern, and Middle States, as well as all the planters of the South and South-West. The East may bear the same relation to the South in interest, that the island of England does to the East Indies, in the manufacture of their great staple; while the home market will be furnished for the products of each section of the Union." Shall these great national and individual interests be left to the tender mercies of foreign legislation ? We say not. What say the people of Indiana ?
WHIG PROMISES.
There are few subjects connected with political events to which the leaders of the modern Democracy so frequently advert, as to what they are pleased to call violated Whig promises. The writer of the pamphlet seems to have caught the contagion for this kind of politi- cal argument, as he has infused a goodly portion of it into his politi- cal text-book. They tell the people that not a single promise made by the Whigs, when they came into power in 1841, has been per- formed, and still they pretend to hold the Whig party responsible for the condition of the country. Is this fair? Is it candid ? If the Whigs have carried out none of their measures, and have performed none of their promises, as they tell the people, then most assuredly the nation has been running down under the measures and policy of the administration of Mr. Van Buren, and the Whigs are in no other- wise responsible than that they did not arrest the deleterious policy of that Democratic administration. If their position be true, and they believe in their own measures, they ought to rejoice that the Whigs had fulfilled none of their promises, and they should hold themselves responsible for the present condition of the country. But suppose the Whigs have not carried out all their measures as they hoped to do, does it lie in the mouth of our opponents who joined in with President Tyler in opposing our policy, to upbraid us with our failure, and then hold us responsible? If they wish to state facts,
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why not tell the people that in a short month after the inauguration of our beloved Harrison, and before any of our measures were adopt- ed, he was taken from us by death, that the administration of the General Government was no longer in accordance with the views of the Whig party ; that President Tyler, listening in an evil hour to the suggestions of the enemies of the party that had elected him Vice President, turned against the Whigs and their measures, and by the exercise of the veto, as effectually deprived them of the power to enaet their measures as if they had been in a minority in both houses of Congress, as they had not two-thirds to carry a bill over his veto. How then ean the Whigs be held responsible? Give us a Whig Congress, and a good Whig for President, and we will cheerfully hold ourselves accountable for the success of our measures and the pros- perity of the nation ; and if the Whigs will do their duty and come up to the polls, they have nothing to fear ; but they must vote to insure success.
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