Thomas H. Benton, a United States Senator from Missouri for 30 years, 1820-50, himself in all that time a prominent leader and debater, and always an indefatigable investigator, published an Abridgment of the Debates in Congress from 1789 to 1856 in 15 large volumes. Each important tariff Debate for the first 70 years of our national history is distinctly brought out in these volumes, and the impulses and motives behind each leading speaker may be discerned as clear as day. The present writer has been over these debates with great care, and has mastered them in their substance and motives on both sides; and he has been besides a deeply interested reader and excerptor of all Congressional tariff-debates for more than 30 years just past; and now invites his present readers to take a cursory glance over this broad field, and satisfy themselves as to the motives personal and associate of the protectionist debaters from the first to the present time.
Because the new Constitution prescribed that "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives," the main debates on the first tariff-act of 1789 were in that branch of the national Legislature. Nothing could be simpler or sounder than the basis of the new tariff as proposed by Madison, the acknowledged leader in the debates, namely, the so-called Revenue System of 1783, as adopted by the old Congress, and ratified by all the States in succession, excepting New York. That was, small specific taxes on eight articles, namely, Wines, Spirits, Tea, Coffee, Cocoa, Molasses, Sugar, and Pepper. In the earlier part of the discussion no other end than revenue was mentioned in connection with the taxes. Madison said: "I own myself the friend of a very free system of commerce: if industry and labor are left to take their own course they will generally be directed to those objects which are most productive, and that in a manner more certain and direct than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out; nor do I believe that the national interest is more promoted by such legislative directions than the interests of the individuals concerned." It is significant of after times that the first word in this debate respecting any other word than revenue through the tariff-taxes came from Pennsylvania; and equally significant, that the next and strongest words for something else than revenue came from Massachusetts; and more significant than either was the junction of the two States in influence and votes when it came to the final adjustment of the actual tariff-rates. Pennsylvania had already gotten well forward in the manufacture of iron and steel products, particularly of nails, and wanted "encouragement," that is, protectionist taxes upon the foreign products corresponding. Said Hartley of Pennsylvania: "I am therefore sorry that gentlemen seem to fix their mind to so early a period as 1783; for we very well know our circumstances are much changed since that time: we had then but few manufactures among us, and the vast quantities of goods that flowed in upon us from Europe at the conclusion of the war rendered those few almost useless; since then we have been forced by necessity, and various other causes, to increase our domestic manufactures to such a degree as to be able to furnish some in sufficient quantity to answer the consumption of the whole Union, while others are daily growing into importance. Our stock of materials is, in many instances, equal to the greatest demand, and our artisans sufficient to work them up even for exportation. In these cases, I take it to be the policy of every enlightened nation to give their manufactures that degree of encouragement necessary to perfect them, without oppressing other parts of the community."
Massachusetts was not a whit behind Pennsylvania in asking for discriminations in her own favor at the obvious expense of the rest of the country. New England rum was made out of molasses, and Jamaica rum was its competitor in public favor; distillers in the neighborhood of Boston and Salem wanted therefore a high tax on Jamaica rum, and a low one on the imported molasses used in the home manufacture. Madison was willing to discourage rum-making and rum-selling both in the interest of temperance, and proposed a tax of eight cents a gallon on molasses and fifteen cents on Jamaica rum, which called out this indignant burst from Goodhue of Massachusetts: "Molasses is a raw material, essentially requisite for the well-being of a very extensive and valuable manufacture. It ought likewise to be considered a necessary of life. In the Eastern States it enters into the diet of the poorer classes of people, who are, from the decay of trade and other adventitious circumstances, totally unable to bear such a weight as a tax of eight cents would be upon them. I cannot consent to allow more than two cents. Massachusetts imports from 30,000 to 40,000 hogsheads annually, more than all the other States together. Fifteen cents, the sum laid on Jamaica spirits, is about one-third part of its value: now eight cents on molasses is considerably more: the former is an article of luxury, therefore that duty may not be improper; but the latter cannot be said to partake of that quality in the substance, and when manufactured into rum is no more a luxury than Jamaica spirits."
The Senate in the First Congress sat with closed doors, and was thus more open than the House to the influence of interested petitions which soon began to pour in upon it, asking for amendments to the House bill in the line of protectionism; and through such amendments the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania members, with a few other members similarly inclined, partially carried their points into the first Tariff. The tax on molasses was fixed at 2½ cents a gallon, and on Jamaica rum at ten cents a gallon; nails were taxed one cent per pound imported; and an accepted Senate amendment classed Hemp and Cotton together as two products of the soil worth "encouraging," hemp at 3⁄5 of a cent per pound and cotton at three cents a pound; yet hemp constantly "encouraged" to this day at the cost of ship building and other industries has never risen to the rank of a staple. Coal was also taxed protectionistly, at the instance of Virginia, then the coal-producing State. Note the three universal features of Protectionism in the original application of it to the United States; (1) the purely selfish call to tax one's neighbor in order to lift the price of one's own wares (nails), (2) the equally selfish resistance to such a tax as falls on one's raw materials (molasses), and (3) the final log-rolling among those legally privileged at different points (Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia).
Take a second instance of the same general point from our second Tariff, passed in 1816. Two Massachusetts young men, Lowell and Jackson, brothers-in-law, had started a modern cotton-mill in Waltham, near Boston, in 1813, and constructed in it, with the help of an ingenious mechanic named Moody, a power-loom; as soon as the war with England was over, and Congress in consequence began to talk about a new Tariff, Lowell went to Washington, and by personal influence with Mr. Calhoun, then the leading man in the House, with Mr. Lowndes his colleague from South Carolina, who afterwards reported the new bill, and with other members of Congress, contributed largely to the introduction into this Tariff of protectionist features towards cottons. Lowell struck strong at the start. He represented (doubtless with entire honesty) to Calhoun and Lowndes, both from a cotton-planting State, that a domestic market for raw cotton in addition to the foreign market would raise the price of that agricultural staple. Both were easily convinced that such would be the case, although both found ample reasons afterwards for altering their opinion in that regard. Lowell, the "cotton city" on the Merrimack, founded in 1821, was named from the successful lobbyist of 1816. Lowndes reported a tax on cottons of 331⁄3% advalorem, with a proviso that all cottons should be assumed at the custom-house to have cost at least 25 cents to the square yard. This was the famous principle of the "minimum," a device to increase the protectionism without seeming to do so.
The debate on this feature of the bill was a marvel in many ways. The penetrating reader will not be at a loss for the reason of this. John Randolph moved to strike out from the bill the proviso for the cotton minimum, and argued at some length "against the propriety of promoting the manufacturing establishments to the extent and in the manner proposed by the bill, and against laying up 8000 tons of shipping now employed in the East India trade, and levying an immense tax on one portion of the community to put money into the pockets of another." Calhoun rejoined: "Until the debate assumed this new form, he had determined to be silent; participating, as he largely did, in that general anxiety which is felt, after so long and laborious a session, to return to the bosom of our families. It has been objected to that bill, that it will injure our marine, and consequently impair our naval strength. How far it is fairly liable to this charge, he was not prepared to say. He hoped and believed it would not, at least to any alarming extent, have that effect immediately; and he firmly believed that its lasting operation would be highly beneficial to our commerce. The trade to the East Indies would certainly be much affected; but it was stated in debate that the whole of that trade employed but six hundred sailors. The cotton and woollen manufactures are not to be introduced: they are already introduced to a great extent; freeing us entirely from the hazards, and in a great measure, the sacrifices experienced in giving the capital of the country a new direction. The restrictive measures and the war, though not intended for that purpose, have by the necessary operation of things turned a large amount of capital to these new branches of industry. But it will no doubt be said, if they are so far established, and if the situation of the country be so favorable to their growth, where is the necessity of affording them protection? It is to put them beyond the reach of contingency."
Thus Calhoun goes on, making the greatest mistake of his life which he regretted to his dying day, to give plausible reasons for his insistence and his vote, but he does not even touch upon the real reason. If he had detailed his conversations with Lowell, it would have been far more to the point. His motive, like that of every other man in Congress who has urged protectionist schemes, was the special benefit of some of his constituents at the more or less concealed expense of their countrymen. But, as always happens when men really act from unavowed motives, he was suspected of having them; and he guarded himself: "He was no manufacturer; he was not from that portion of the country supposed to be peculiarly interested. Coming as he did from the South, and having in common with his immediate constituents, no interest but in the cultivation of the soil, in selling its products high, and buying cheap the wants and conveniences of life, no motives could be attributed to him but such as were disinterested." But Randolph still charged, that the discussion showed "a strange and mysterious connection" between this measure and the National Bank bill which had just passed. This was a loophole of escape for Calhoun: "he wished merely to reply to the insinuation of a mysterious connection between this bill and that to establish the Bank. He denied any improper or unfair understanding, and could challenge the House to support the charge."
A beautiful instance of the confession, which all protectionists make in action when it comes to the pinch, that a rise of price is at once the object and the result of protectionist tariff-taxes, is found in the awkward attempt of Congress to relieve indirectly the burnt-out citizens of Chicago in 1871. The great fire occurred in October of that year. In the winter following a bit of legislation took place in Congress in consequence, which is too instructive to be passed by without notice, because in all the parts of it taken together we have in epitome the motives and the processes and the prompt confessions of Protectionism. Contributions were taken up all over the country, and even in Europe, for the relief of the people of Chicago. As Whittier puts it:
"From East, from West, from South and North,
The messages of love shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world, full-handed, reached to save."
But cannot Congress do something to help rebuild the ruined city? April 5, 1872, President Grant set his signature to a congressional bill enacted to last one year only, and for the express benefit of Chicago alone, to exempt all building materials except lumber from the operation of tariff-taxes. As a public and emphatic confession on the part of Congress, that tariff-taxes raise the prices of protectionist goods, and that the remission of such taxes lowers the prices of such goods and becomes a boon to the buyers, all this is refreshing and satisfactory; but why was lumber, by much the most important of the building materials needed, excepted from the bounty of the legislators to the unfortunates of Chicago? The bill applied to Chicago only, and was to last but one year at best! The bill as drawn and debated included all building materials. Why was lumber excepted? Because, while the bill was still pending, a special car filled with the lumber-lords of Michigan and Wisconsin was rolled to Washington in haste, and the potent influence of these men was sufficient to cause the express exemption of their product from the intended cheapening (for one year) of the building materials for desolated Chicago. The brief official record of this curious transaction will be found in U.S. Statutes for 1872, page 33. It needs no comment but the obvious one, that here is the whole matter of protectionism in a nutshell;—the motive, the open confession, the greedy lobby determined to thrive on their neighbors' misfortunes, the inhumanity, the spirit of monopoly, the infernalism,—a game of grab from beginning to end!