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I say that the article is necessary to us in New England. It enters into our daily life,—into the economies of every house, into the expenses of every citizen. It enters, therefore, into the welfare of the community; and you cannot tax coal without making the whole community feel it, whether rich or poor. Every poor man feels it. If I said the rich man felt it, you would reply, “That makes no difference; let him feel it.” I insist that every poor man feels it; and I insist further, that all who are interested in the manufactures of the country necessarily feel it,—not only producers and owners, but all who use the products of their looms. I say, that, as a motive power, it should be made cheap and kept cheap. Now the apparent policy is, to make it dear and keep it dear.
Mr. Hendricks [of Indiana]. I like the Senator’s argument just where he is now; but I wish to ask him whether, if by a tariff you raise the price of every yard of cheap woollen goods and cheap cotton goods, it is not a direct tax on the labor of the poor man of the West, who has to buy them?
Mr. Creswell [of Maryland, to Mr. Sumner]. That is the application of your argument.
Mr. Sumner. The Senator from Maryland says that is the application of my argument. Pardon me, not at all; because the tax on cotton and on woollen goods—I have had very little to do with imposing any such tax—is not oppressive on any part of the country, nor does it bear hard on the constituents of the Senator, or on the constituents of any Senator on this floor; whereas the increase of the tax on coal will bear hard upon a whole community, and upon all its interests; and that is the precise difference between the two cases.
The Senator from Ohio seemed to speak of this with perfect tranquillity, as if there were nothing in it oppressive, or even open to criticism. He thought we might tax coal as we tax any other article. I differ from him. I do not think you should tax coal as you tax other articles; and, further, I do not think you should impose any tax bearing with special hardship, so as to be something akin to injustice, on any particular part of our country. That is my answer to the argument of the Senator from Maryland, and to the inquiry of the Senator from Indiana.
Mr. Creswell replied warmly, criticizing Mr. Sumner, saying, among other things,—
“The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has treated us to a Free-Trade speech in the Senate of the United States. The commentary of the Senator from Indiana was just and correct; it was a deduction that he had a right logically to make; and I tell the Senator from Massachusetts that his course in the Senate to-day is in its effects a better Free-Trade speech than has ever been made in any of the Middle States during the last ten years.”
Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, united with Mr. Sumner.
The amendment was lost,—Yeas 11, Nays 25.