Mr. Macon thought the proposition to tax this necessary of life, at a time when it is probable we may find a difficulty in procuring it in sufficient quantity, was very ill-timed. The repeal of this duty had been called strange. He thought it would have been more strange had Congress continued the duty when the Treasury was not in need of the money arising from it. If there was any thing strange in the business, it was that there should have been any opposition to the repeal. Mr. M. agreed with the remark made by a gentleman from Massachusetts some days ago, that taxes, to be just, ought to be equal. Would a tax on salt, he asked, be equal? It certainly would not. People on the seacoast would not feel it. Their cattle would refuse it, if given to them. The interior of the country, the people from East to West, would have to bear the weight of this tax. But the gentleman from Massachusetts says the repealing of this duty ruined his constituents, who live on the sandbanks of the country. He would not consent, however, to tax the people of his part of the country, living on sandhills, to support that gentleman's sandbank constituents.
But this duty, it is said, is to be laid to encourage manufactures. Why this great cry about domestic manufactures? He thought they had already sufficient encouragement from the present situation of things. The President had recommended the subject to the consideration of the House, and he had no doubt the committee, to whom it had been referred, would do what is proper on the subject. Mr. M. wished to know for what purpose this additional duty is wanted. If, said he, it be wanted for going to war, let us know it. For his part, he had heard so much about war formerly, that he hardly thought we should get at it now.
Mr. M. said on a former occasion, when the country was in a situation something like the present, a gentleman from Virginia was so alarmed lest salt sufficient could not be had, that he proposed a bounty on its importation. What, said Mr. M., will be the effect of a proposition for taxing salt in the country? He had no doubt that, in the Southern States, it would immediately raise the price of the article at Petersburg and Fayetteville. On this account, he hoped, if the House did not mean to lay a tax on salt, that the proposition would be immediately discarded. For himself, he would sooner consent to a land or poll tax than a tax on salt.
Mr. Smilie moved a postponement of the resolution until the first Monday in February next.
This motion was debated at some length. Some who wished to vote for it, wished the proposition for a tax on salt to be disconnected with the original proposition.
Friday, November 22.
Another member, to wit, Edwin Gray, from Virginia, appeared, produced his credentials, was qualified, and took his seat.
Apportionment of Representatives.
On motion of Mr. Dawson, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the bill for apportioning the Representatives among the several States, according to the third enumeration.
The bill having been read, the question on filling the blanks occurred. The first was in relation to the number of inhabitants for each Representative; when