Friday, April 24.
Mr. Boudinot reported, from the committee appointed to attend with a committee from the Senate, to receive the President of the United States, at the place of his embarkation from New Jersey, that the committee did, according to order, together with a committee from the Senate, attend at Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, on the 23d instant, at which place the two committees met the President, and thence embarked for this city, where they arrived about three o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, and conducted him to the house appointed for his residence.
The Speaker laid before the House a letter from the Vice President of the United States, enclosing a resolution of the Senate, appointing a committee to consider and report what style or titles it will be proper to annex to the office of President and Vice President of the United States, if any other than those given in the constitution; also to consider of the time, place, and manner in which, and the person by whom, the oath prescribed by the constitution, shall be administered to the President, and to confer thereon with such committee as this House should appoint for that purpose; whereupon,
Ordered, That a committee, to consist of five members, be appointed for the purpose expressed in the resolution of the Senate.
The members elected were Messrs. Benson, Ames, Madison, Carroll, and Sherman.
Duties on Imports.
The House then proceeded to consider the resolutions reported by the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union.
Mr. Boudinot complained that the articles were generally taxed too high, not too high for the article to bear, but too high for the due collection of the revenue. Every thing we tax should be considered as it relates to the interest of the importer, as well as other circumstances; now, if it is discovered that the duties are so great as to make it a beneficial trade to the merchant to run his goods, he will do so, and injure the revenue.
Mr. Madison was sensible that high duties had a tendency to promote smuggling, and in case those kinds of frauds were successfully practised the revenue must be diminished; yet he believed the sum proposed on spirits was not so high as to produce those effects to any considerable degree. If any article is capable of paying a heavy duty, it is this; if the duty on any article is capable of being collected with certainty, it is this; if a duty on any article is consonant with the sentiment of the people of America, it is this; why then should not the article be made as tributary as possible to the wants of Government? But, besides these favorable circumstances, I think the combination of the merchants will come in aid of the law; the people will also lend their aid. These circumstances would do much toward insuring the due collection of the revenue.
Mr. Jackson seconded Mr. Boudinot's motion for reducing the duties, because he was well convinced they were too high even to be well collected, unless we establish custom-houses every ten or twelve miles, like watch-towers, along the sea-coast. When trade is so unproductive, the Legislature ought to be careful how they make it more worth a man's while to live by committing frauds upon the revenue than by practising honest commerce.
There is another consideration which particularly regarded the Georgia trade. That country, abounding with lumber of the most luxurious growth, could only exchange it for rum; and a very considerable commerce grew out of this intercourse favorable to Georgia. This would be affected by the imposition of heavy duties; but commercial considerations, we shall be told, form only a secondary object in this business. There is another proposition in which he acquiesced; it would be more convenient, and more to the honor of the House, to make their first essay with low duties; because, if they persisted in laying them high, they would be compelled to an inglorious retreat, and the Government would be insulted. In the State he represented, it was next to impossible to collect the revenue, the country was so intersected with navigable creeks and rivers, if the people were disposed to evade the payment of it; and there was no more certain way to produce this disposition than by making it their interest to defraud you.
Mr. Boudinot was not ashamed to confess that he wanted the advantages of commercial knowledge on a question where the principles of trade were interwoven; but he opposed high duties on a conviction in his own mind that they could not be collected. He repeated some few of his former arguments to show why he held this opinion; but it was not the particular article of rum that he was opposed to, it was the high scale on which the duties were laid generally, and that only from an idea that greater revenue might be obtained from less duties.
Mr. Tucker wished the duties to be lowered, and proposed to the committee to strike off seven cents from the fifteen; by varying his motion in this manner, he expected the sense of the House could be taken on his proposition first, notwithstanding the rule that "the question shall be put on the highest sum first." He joined in the opinion that high duties were productive of smuggling; that notwithstanding the powers and vigilance of custom-house officers, and the whole Executive, contraband trade is carried on in every nation where the duties are so high; the facility with which it could be done in America ought to show a prudent Legislature the degree of probability; unless this can be guarded against, what will the law avail? It can avail nothing. Besides, the higher the duty is laid, the more you expose the officer to the temptation of being corrupted; when that is done, the revenue will be very unproductive.
Mr. Bland would second the gentleman last up, but thought it was not in order to have the question taken first on the lowest sum.
Mr. Fitzsimons observed to the House, that the decision of the present question, in his mind, involved some very important alterations in the present measure; the consequences resulting from which ought to be well considered. In order, therefore, to gain time for this purpose, he would move an adjournment; whereupon the House adjourned.