Mr. Madison's resolutions founded on the above report.
These memorable resolutions embraced almost completely the idea of the report. They imposed an additional duty on the manufactures, and on the tonnage of vessels, of nations having no commercial treaty with the United States; while they reduced the duties already imposed by law, on the tonnage of vessels belonging to nations having such commercial treaty: and they reciprocated the restrictions which were imposed on American navigation.
Debate thereon.
On the 13th of January they were taken into consideration, when the debate was opened by Mr. Smith of South Carolina.
After noticing the importance of the subject to the best interests of the United States, he observed that, being purely commercial in its nature, he would exclude from the view he should take of it, those political considerations which some might think connected with it. He imagined it would be right to dismiss, for the present, all questions respecting the Indians, Algerines, and western posts. There would be a time for these questions; and then he should give his opinion upon them with firmness, and according to what he conceived to be the true interests of his country. The regulation of commerce gave of itself sufficient scope for argument, without mixing it with extraneous matter.
After some general observations on the delicacy of the crisis, and on the claims of the resolutions to dispassionate investigation, he proceeded to consider the report on which they were founded.
The great object of that report being to establish a contrast between France and Britain, he would request the attention of the committee to an accurate statement of facts, which, being compared with the report, would enable them to decide on the justness of its inferences.
In the opinion that any late relaxations of the French republic were produced by interests too momentary and fluctuating to be taken as the basis of calculations for a permanent system, he should present a comparative view of the commerce of the United States to those countries, as it stood anterior to the revolution of France. For this purpose, he produced a table which had been formed by a person whose commercial information was highly respectable, from which he said it would appear, notwithstanding the plaudits so generally bestowed on the justice and liberality of the one nation, and the reproaches uttered against the other, that, with the exception of the trifling article of fish oil, the commerce of the United States was not more favoured in France than in Great Britain, and was, in many important articles, more favoured by the latter power, than that of other nations.
Mr. Smith then reviewed, in detail, the advantages and disadvantages attending the sale of the great products of America in the ports of each nation, which, he conceived, were more encouraged by the British than by the French market.
A comparative statement, he added, of the value of the exports of the two countries, would assist in confirming this opinion.