Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ which has been presented. Mr. Speaker (Clay) has alluded to the strong inclination which exists, or has existed, in various parts of the country, to issue paper money, as a proof of great existing difficulties. I regard it rather as a very productive cause of those difficulties; and we cannot fail to observe, that there is at this moment much the loudest complaint of distress precisely where there has been the greatest attempt to relieve it by a system of paper credit. Let us not suppose that we are beginning the protection of manufactures by duties on imports. Look to the history of our laws; look to the present state of our laws. Consider that our whole revenue, with a trifling exception, is collected from the custom-house, and always has been; and then say what propriety there is in calling on the government for protection, as if no protection had heretofore been afforded. On the general question, allow me to ask if the doctrine of prohibition, as a general doctrine, be not preposterous? Suppose all nations to act upon it: they would be prosperous, then, according to the argument, precisely in the proportion in which they abolished intercourse with one another. The best apology for laws of prohibition and laws of monopoly, will be found in that state of society, not only unenlightened, but sluggish, in which they are most generally established. Private industry in those days, required strong provocatives, which government was seeking to administer by these means. Something was wanted to actuate and stimulate men, and the prospects of such profits as would, in our times, excite unbounded competition, would hardly move the sloth of former ages. In some instances, no doubt, these laws produced an effect which, in that period, would not have taken place without them. (Instancing the protection to the English woollen manufactures in the time of the Henrys and the Edwards). But our age is wholly of a different character, and its legislation takes another turn. Society is full of excitement: competition comes in place of monopoly; and intelligence and industry ask only for fair play and an open field."

      With Mr. Webster were numerous and able speakers on the side of free trade: From his own State, Mr. Baylies; from New-York, Mr. Cambreling; from Virginia, Messrs. Randolph, Philip P. Barbour, John S. Barbour, Garnet, Alexander Smythe, Floyd, Mercer, Archer, Stevenson, Rives, Tucker, Mark Alexander; from North Carolina, Messrs. Mangum, Saunders, Spaight, Lewis Williams, Burton, Weldon N. Edwards; from South Carolina, Messrs. McDuffie, James Hamilton, Poinsett; from Georgia, Messrs. Forsyth, Tatnall, Cuthbert, Cobb; from Tennessee, Messrs. Blair, Isaaks, Reynolds; from Louisiana, Mr. Edward Livingston; from Alabama, Mr. Owen; from Maryland, Mr. Warfield; from Mississippi, Mr. Christopher Rankin.

      The bill was carried in the House, after a protracted contest of ten weeks, by the lean majority of five – 107 to 102 – only two members absent, and the voting so zealous that several members were brought in upon their sick couches. In the Senate the bill encountered a strenuous resistance. Mr. Edward Lloyd, of Maryland, moved to refer it to the committee on finance – a motion considered hostile to the bill; and which was lost by one vote – 22 to 23. It was then, on the motion of Mr. Dickerson, of New Jersey, referred to the committee on manufactures; a reference deemed favorable to the bill, and by which committee it was soon returned to the Senate without any proposed amendment. It gave rise to a most earnest debate, and many propositions of amendment, some of which, of slight import, were carried. The bill itself was carried by the small majority of four votes – 25 to 21. The principal speakers in favor of the bill were: Messrs. Dickerson, of New Jersey; D'Wolf, of Rhode Island; Holmes, of Maine; E. M. Johnson, of Kentucky; Lowrie, of Pennsylvania; Talbot, of Kentucky; Van Buren. Against it the principal speakers were: Messrs. James Barbour and John Taylor, of Virginia (usually called John Taylor of Caroline); Messrs. Branch, of North Carolina; Hayne, of South Carolina; Henry Johnson and Josiah Johnston, of Louisiana; Kelly and King, of Alabama; Rufus King, of New-York; James Lloyd, of Massachusetts; Edward Lloyd and Samuel Smith, of Maryland; Macon, of North Carolina; Van Dyke, of Delaware. The bill, though brought forward avowedly for the protection of domestic manufactures, was not entirely supported on that ground. An increase of revenue was the motive with some, the public debt being still near ninety millions, and a loan of five millions being authorized at that session. An increased protection to the products of several States, as lead in Missouri and Illinois, hemp in Kentucky, iron in Pennsylvania, wool in Ohio and New-York, commanded many votes for the bill; and the impending presidential election had its influence in its favor. Two of the candidates, Messrs. Adams and Clay, were avowedly for it; General Jackson, who voted for the bill, was for it, as tending to give a home supply of the articles necessary in time of war, and as raising revenue to pay the public debt. Mr. Crawford was opposed to it; and Mr. Calhoun had been withdrawn from the list of presidential candidates, and become a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. The Southern planting States were extremely dissatisfied with the passage of the bill, believing that the new burdens upon imports which it imposed fell upon the producers of the exports, and tended to enrich one section of the Union at the expense of another. The attack and support of the bill took much of a sectional aspect; Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, and some others being nearly unanimous against it. Pennsylvania, New-York, Ohio, Kentucky being nearly unanimous for it. Massachusetts, which up to this time had a predominating interest in commerce, voted all, except one member, against it. With this sectional aspect, a tariff for protection also began to assume a political aspect, being taken under the care of the party since discriminated as Whig, which drew from Mr. Van Buren a sagacious remark, addressed to the manufacturers themselves; that if they suffered their interests to become identified with a political party (any one), they would share the fate of that party, and go down with it whenever it sunk. Without the increased advantages to some States, the pendency of the presidential election, and the political tincture which the question began to receive, the bill would not have passed – so difficult is it to prevent national legislation from falling under the influence of extrinsic and accidental causes. The bill was approved by Mr. Monroe – a proof that that careful and strict constructionist of the Constitution did not consider it as deprived of its revenue character by the degree of protection which it extended.

      CHAPTER XIV.

      THE A. B. PLOT

      On Monday, the 19th of April, the Speaker of the House (Mr. Clay) laid before that body a note just received from Ninian Edwards, Esq., late Senator in Congress, from Illinois, and then Minister to Mexico, and then on his way to his post, requesting him to present to the House a communication which accompanied the note, and which charged illegalities and misconduct on the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. William H. Crawford. The charges and specifications, spread through a voluminous communication, were condensed at its close into six regular heads of accusation, containing matter of impeachment; and declaring them all to be susceptible of proof, if the House would order an investigation. The communication was accompanied by ten numbers of certain newspaper publications, signed A. B., of which Mr. Edwards avowed himself to be the author, and asked that they might be received as a part of his communication, and printed along with it, and taken as the specifications under the six charges. Mr. Crawford was then a prominent candidate for the Presidency, and the A. B. papers, thus communicated to the House, were a series of publications made in a Washington City paper, during the canvass, to defeat his election, and would doubtless have shared the usual fate of such publications, and sunk into oblivion after the election was over, had it not been for this formal appeal to the House (the grand inquest of the nation) and this call for investigation. The communication, however, did not seem to contemplate an early investigation, and certainly not at the then session of Congress. Congress was near its adjournment; the accuser was on his way to Mexico; the charges were grave; the specifications under them numerous and complex; and many of them relating to transactions with the remote western banks. The evident expectation of the accuser was, that the matter would lie over to the next session, before which time the presidential election would take place, and all the mischief be done to Mr. Crawford's character, resulting from unanswered accusations of so much gravity, and so imposingly laid before the impeaching branch of Congress. The friends of Mr. Crawford saw the necessity of immediate action; and Mr. Floyd of Virginia, instantly, upon the reading of the communication, moved that a committee be appointed to take it into consideration, and that it be empowered to send for persons and papers – to administer oaths – take testimony – and report it to the House; with leave to sit after the adjournment, if the investigation was not finished before; and publish their report. The committee was granted, with all the powers asked for, and was most unexceptionably СКАЧАТЬ