2. In 1790 the duty on salt was doubled: it was raised from six to twelve cents a bushel: by the same act the fishing bounties and allowances were also doubled: they were raised from five to ten cents the barrel and the quintal. By this act the bounties and allowances both to fish and provisions, were described to be "in lieu of drawback of the duty on salt used in curing fish and provisions exported."
3. The act of 1792 repeals "the bounty in lieu of drawback on dried fish;" and, "in lieu of that, and as commutation thereof, and as an equivalent therefor," shifts the bounty from the "quintal" of dried fish to the "tonnage" of the fishing vessel; and changes its name from "bounty" to "allowance." This is the key act to the present system of tonnage allowance to the fishing vessel; and was passed upon the petition of the fishermen, and to enable the "crew" of the vessel to draw the bounty instead of letting it fall into the hands of the exporting merchant. It was done upon the fishermen's petition, and for the benefit of the crew, interested in the adventure, and who had paid the duty on the salt which they used. And to exclude all idea of considering this change as a change of policy, and to cut off all inference that the allowance was now to become a bounty from the Treasury as an encouragement for a seaman's nursery, the act went on to make this precise and explicit declaration: "That the allowance so granted to the fishing vessel was a commutation of, and an equivalent for, the bounty in lieu of drawback of the duties imposed on the importation of the salt used in curing the fish exported." This is plain language—the plain language used by legislators of that day—and defies misconception, misunderstanding, or cavil.
4. In 1797 the duty on salt was raised from twelve cents to twenty cents a bushel: by the same act a corresponding increase was made in the bounties both to exported salted provisions and pickled fish, and in the allowance to the fishing vessels. The salt duty was raised one-third and a fraction: and these bounties and allowances were raised one-third. Thirty-three and one-third per cent. was added all round; and the act, to make all sure, was express in again declaring the bounties and allowances to be a commutation in lieu of the drawback of the salt duty.
5. The act of April 12th, 1800, continues the salt duty, and with it all the bounties to salted provisions and pickled fish exported, and all the allowances to fishing vessels, for ten years; and then adds this proviso: "That these allowances shall not be understood to be continued for a longer time than the correspondent duties on salt, respectively, for which the said allowances were granted, shall be payable." Such are the terms of the act of the year 1800. It is a clincher. It nails up, and crushes every thing. It shows that Congress was determined that the salt duty, and the bounties and allowances, should be one and indivisible: that they should come, and go together—should rise and fall together—should live and die together.
6. In 1807, Mr. Jefferson being President, the salt tax was abolished upon his recommendation: and with it all the bounties and allowances to fishing vessels, to pickled fish, and to salted beef and pork were all swept away. The same act abolished the whole. The first section repealed the salt duty: the second repealed the bounties and allowances: and the repeal of both was to take effect on the same day—namely, on the first day of January, 1808: a day which deserves to be nationally commemorated, as the day of the death of an odious, criminal and impious tax. The beneficent and meritorious act was in these words: "That from and after the first day of January next, so much of any act as allows a bounty on exported salt provisions and pickled fish, in lieu of drawback of the duties on the salt employed in curing the same, and so much of any act as makes allowances to the owners and crews of fishing vessels, in lieu of drawback of the duties paid on the salt used in the same, shall be, and the same hereby is repealed." This was the end of the first salt tax in the United States, and of all the bounties and allowances built upon it. It fell, with all its accessories, under the republican administration of Mr. Jefferson—and with the unanimous vote of every republican—and also with the vote of many federalists: so much more favorable were the old federalists than the whigs of this day, to the interests of the people. In fact there were only five votes against the repeal, and not one of these upon the ground that the bounties and allowances were independent of the salt duty.
7. After this, and for six years, there was no salt tax—no fishing bounties or allowances in the United States. The tax, and its progeny lay buried in one common grave, and had no resurrection until the year 1813. The war with Great Britain revived them—the tax and its offspring together; but only as a temporary measure—as a war tax—to cease within one year after the termination of the war. Before that year was out, the tax, and its appendages were continued—not for any determinate period, but until repealed by Congress. They have not been repealed yet! and that was forty years ago! No act could then have been obtained to continue this duty for the short space of three years. The continuance could only be obtained on the argument that Congress could then repeal it at any time; a fallacious reliance, but always seductive to men of easy and temporizing temperaments.
The pretension that these fishing bounties and allowances were granted as encouragement to mariners, is rejected by every word of the acts which grant them, and by the striking fact, that no part of them goes to the whale fisheries. Not a cent of them had ever gone to a whale ship: they had only gone to the cod and mackerel fisheries. The noble whaler of four or five hundred tons, with her ample crew, which sailed twenty thousand miles, doubling a most tempestuous cape before she arrived at the field of her labors—which remained out three years, waging actual war with the monsters of the deep—a war in which a brave heart, a steady eye, and an iron nerve were as much wanted as in any battle with man;—this noble whaler got nothing. It all went to the hook-and-line men—to the cod and mackerel fisheries, which were carried on in diminutive vessels, as small as five tons, and in the rivers, and along the shores, and on the shallow banks of Newfoundland. Meritorious as these hook-and-line fishermen might be, they cannot compare with the whalers: and these whalers receive no bounties and allowances because they pay no duty on imported salt, re-exported by them.
I now come to the clause in my bill which has called forth these preliminary remarks; the third clause, which proposes the reduction of fishing bounties and allowances in proportion to the reduction which the salt tax has undergone, and shall undergo. And here, it is not the compromise act alone that is to be blamed: a previous act shares that censure with it. In 1830 the salt duty was reduced one-half, to take effect in 1830 and 1831; the fishing bounties and allowances should have been reduced one-half at the same time. I made the motion in the Senate to that effect; but it failed of success. When the compromise act was passed in 1833, and provided for a further reduction of the salt duty—a reduction which has now reduced it two-thirds, and in 1841 and '42 will reduce it still lower—when this act was passed, a reduction of the fishing bounties and allowances should have taken place. The two senators who concocted that act in their chambers, and brought it here to be registered as the royal edicts were registered in the times of the old French monarchy; when these two senators concocted this act, they should have inserted a provision in it for the correspondent reduction of the fishing bounties and allowances with the salt tax: they should have placed these allowances, and the refined sugar, and the rum drawbacks, all on the same footing, and reduced them all in proportion to the reduction of the duties on the articles on which they were founded. They did not do this. They omitted the whole; with what mischief you have already seen in the case of rum and refined sugar, and shall presently see in the case of the fishing bounties and allowances. I attempted to supply a part of their omission in making the motion in relation to drawbacks, which was read to you at the commencement of these remarks. Failing in that motion, I made no further attempt, but waited for TIME, the great arbiter of all questions, to show the mischief, and to enforce the remedy. That arbiter is now here, with his proofs in his hand, in the shape of certain reports from the Treasury Department in relation to the salt duty and the fishing bounties and allowances, which have been printed by the order of the Senate, and constitute part of the salt document, No. 196. From that document I now proceed to collect the evidences of one branch of the mischief—the pecuniary branch of it—which the omission to make the proper reductions in these allowances has inflicted upon the country.
The salt duty was reduced one-fourth in the year 1831; the fishing bounties and allowances that year were $313,894; they should have been reduced one-fourth also, which would have made them about $160,000. In 1832 the duty was reduced one-half; the fishing bounties and allowances were paid in full, and amounted to $234,137; they should have been reduced one-half; and then $117,018 would have discharged them. The compromise act was made in 1833, and, under the operation of that act, the salt duty has undergone biennial reductions, until it is now reduced to about one-third of its original amount: if it had provided for the correspondent reduction of the fishing bounties and allowances, there would have been saved from that year to the year 1839—the last to which the returns have been made up—an annual average sum of about $150,000, or a gross sum of about $900,000. The prospective loss can only be estimated; but it is to increase rapidly, owing to the large reductions in the salt duty in the years 1841 and 1842.
The present year, 1840, lacks but a little of exhausting the whole amount of the salt revenue in paying the fishing bounties and allowances; the next year will take more than the whole; and the year after will require about double the amount of the salt revenue of that year to be taken from other branches of the revenue to satisfy the demands of the fishing vessels: thus producing the same result as in the case of the sugar duties—the whole amount of the salt duty, and as much more out of other duties, being paid to the cod and mackerel fishermen, as the whole amount of the sugar tax, and considerably more, is paid to the sugar-refiners. The results for the present year, and the ensuing ones, are of course computed: they are computations founded upon the basis of the last ascertained year's operations. The last year to which all the heads of this branch of business is made up, is the year 1838; and for that year they stand thus: Salt imported, in round numbers, seven millions of bushels; net revenue from it, about $430,000; fishing bounties and allowances, $320,000. Assuming the importation of the present year to be the same, and the bounties and allowances to be the same, the loss to the Treasury will be $206,000; for the salt duty this year will undergo a further reduction. In 1842, when this duty has reached its lowest point, the whole amount of revenue derived from it is computed at about $170,000, while the fishing bounties and allowances continuing the same, namely, about $320,000, the salt revenue in the gross will be little more than half enough to pay it; and, after deducting the weighers' and measurers' fees, which come out of the Treasury, and amount to $52,500 on an importation of seven millions; after deducting this item, there will be a deficiency of about $200,000 in the salt revenue, in meeting the drawbacks, in the shape of bounties and allowances founded upon it. Thus two-thirds of the whole amount of the salt revenue is at this time paid to the fishing vessels. Next year it will all go to them; and after 1842, we shall have to raise money from other sources to the amount of $200,000 per annum, or raise the salt duty itself to produce that amount, in order to satisfy these drawbacks, which were permitted to take the form of bounties and allowances to fishing vessels. Such is the operation of the compromise act! that act which is styled sacred and inviolable!