On January 9th, 1823, Mr. Tod, of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the committee on Manufactures, reported a tariff bill. It proposed to nearly double the existing duty upon iron, quadruple that upon coarse woollens, and to increase the custom-house valuation of dyed cotton goods by some forty per centum.
Moreover, the bill made no provision for the future reduction of these duties. It therefore indicated that protection was to be the permanent policy, protection so high as to amount to the prohibition of the importation of coarse cottons and woollens and bar iron. In fact, Mr. Tod conceded that the prohibition of the importation of coarse woollens was intended. He said that the tariff of 1816 on coarse cotton goods had given a monopoly of the domestic markets for such goods to the home manufacturers, while the price of the goods had been reduced through home competition by one-half, and that his committee desired to bring about the same result in regard to the manufacture of coarse woollens.
| The general character of the bill, and its failure to pass. |
Mr. Tod was not able to get a vote upon his bill at this session of the Congress. Three significant facts, however, were elicited in the course of the debate upon it, facts which indicated the trend of political history. These facts were that the bill was a Pennsylvania measure, that the South would oppose it, and that Massachusetts and New York City would unite with the South in this opposition. It was, in fact, a Massachusetts man, Mr. Gorham, who denounced the bill as sectional legislation, and advised the South to resist it to the utmost. Cotton and commerce, and that meant slavery and commerce, were beginning to discover their affinity.
| President Monroe's Message of 1823, and protection. |
President Monroe, however, does not seem to have shared this view of the subject. In his message of December 2nd, 1823, he again recommended additional protection to "those articles which we are prepared to manufacture, or which are more immediately connected with the defence and independence of the country."
Thus encouraged by the President, the House of Representatives again referred the question of increasing the tariff to Mr. Tod's committee.