This check on the flow of specie abroad, to pay either a commercial or a public debt, will operate by the imposition of duties to meet the wants of the government; will keep the precious metals at home to a much greater extent than is now possible. I hope that we shall learn to live within our own means, and not remain so dependent as we now are on the mere good pleasure and domestic policy of foreign governments. We go for revenue; for an amount of revenue adequate to an economical administration of the government. We can get such revenue nowhere else than from a tariff on importations. No man in his senses will propose a resort to direct or internal taxes. And this arrangement of the tariff, while it answers this end, will at the same time operate as a check on the efflux of the precious metals, and retain what is necessary for the purposes of exchange and circulation.
The fourth advantage attending the adoption of the system proposed will be, that the states will be left in the undisturbed possession of the land fund secured to them by the act of the last session, and which was intended to aid them in the embarrassments under which some of them are now laboring.
And the last is that to which I have already adverted, namely, that it will afford, indirectly, protection to the interests of American industry. And the most bitter and persevering opponent to the protective policy I ever met with, has never denied that it is both the right and the duty of government so to lay the taxes necessary to the public service, as to afford incidental protection to our own home industry.
But it is said that, by the adoption of one fixed, arbitrary maximum of ad valorem duty, we shall not derive that measure of protection which is expected; and I admit that there may be certain articles, the product of the mechanic arts—such, for example, as shoes, hats, and ready made clothing, and sugar, iron, and paper—some or all of which may not derive the protection which they need under the plan I propose. On that subject I canonly say, what I said at the time of the passage of the compromise act, if some few articles shall not prove to be sufficiently protected beneath the established maximum rate, I should hope that, in the spirit of harmony and compromise, additional duties, above that rate, sufficient to afford reasonable protection to those few articles, by general consent, would be imposed. I am not, at present, prepared to say whether the rule I have suggested will afford adequate protection to these particular interests or not; I fear it may not. But if the subject shall be looked at in the spirit of patriotism, without party bias or local influences, it will be found that the few articles alluded to are so distributed, or are of such a nature as to furnish the grounds of a friendly adjustment. The interests of the sugar of the south may then be set against the iron of the centre and the productions of the mechanic arts, which, although prevailing everywhere, are most concentrated at the north. With respect to these, without reference to any general system of protection, they have been at all times protected. And who that has a heart, or the sympathies of a man, can say or feel that our hatters, tailors, and shoemakers, should not be protected against the rival productions of other countries? Who would say that the shoemaker, who makes the shoes of his wife—his own wife, according to the proverb, being the last woman in the parish that is supplied with hers—shall not be protected? that the tailor, who furnishes him with a new coat, or the hatter, that makes him a new hat, to go to church, to attend a wedding or christening, or to visit his neighbor, shall not be adequately protected?
Then there is the essential article of iron; that is a great central interest. Whether it will require a higher degree of protection than it will derive from such a system as I have sketched, I have not sufficient information to decide; but this I am prepared to say, that question will be with the representatives of those states which are chiefly interested; and, if their iron is not sufficiently protected, they must take the matter up and make out their case to be an exception to the general arrangement. When I speak of the representatives of these states, I mean their entire delegation, without regard to political denominations or distinctions. They must look into the matter, and if they take it up, and bring forward their propositions, and make out a clear case of exception to the general rule, I shall be an humble follower of their lead, but I will not myself take the lead in any such case. If these states want certain interests protected, they must send delegates here who are prepared to protect them. Such a state cannot reasonably expect senators from other states, having no direct, local, or particular concern in such interests, to force on her the protection of her own interests against her own will, as that will is officially expressed by her representatives in congress. I again say, I am ready to follow, but I will not lead.
With me, from the first moment I conceived the idea of creating, at home, a protection for the production of whatever is needed to supply the wants of man, up to this moment, it has always been purely a question of expediency. I never could comprehend the constitutional objection which to some gentlemen seems so extremely obvious. I could comprehend, to be sure, what these gentlemen mean to argue, but I never had the least belief in the constitutional objection which slept from 1788, (or, rather, which reverses the doctrine of 1780,) till it suddenly waked up in 1820. Then, for the first time since the existence of the constitution, was the doctrine advanced that we could not legitimately afford any protection to our own home industry against foreign and adverse industry. I say, that with me it always was a question of expediency only. If the nation does not want protection, I certainly never would vote to force it upon the nation; but viewing it as a question of expediency wholly, I have not hesitated heretofore, on the broad and comprehensive ground of expediency, to give my assent to all suitable measures proposed with a view to that end.
The senate will perceive that I have forborne to go into detail, especially in regard to the urgency of reform and retrenchment, with one or two exceptions. I have presented to it a system of policy embodied in these resolutions, containing those great principles in which I believe that the interest, prosperity, and happiness of the country are deeply involved—principles, the adoption of which alone can place the finances of the government upon a respectable footing, and free us from a condition of servile dependence on the legislation of foreign nations. I have persuaded myself that the system now brought forward will be met in a spirit of candor and of patriotism, and in the hope that whatever may have been the differences in the senate in days past, we have now reached a period in which we forget our prejudices, and agree to bury our transient animosities deep at the foot of the altar of our common country, and come together as an assemblage of friends, and brothers, and compatriots, met in common consultation to devise the best mode of relieving the public distress. It is in this spirit that I have brought forward my proposed plan; and I trust in God, invoking, as I humbly do, the aid and blessing of his providence, that the senators, on all sides of the chamber, will lay aside all party feelings, and more especially that habitual suspicion to which we are all more or less prone, (and from which I profess not to be exempted more than other men,) that impels us to reject, without examination, and to distrust whatever proceeds from a quarter we have been in the habit of opposing. Let us lay aside prejudice; let us look at the distresses of our country, and these alone. I trust that in this spirit we shall examine these resolutions, and decide upon them according to the dictates of our own consciences, and in a pure and patriotic regard to the welfare of our country.
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO THE SENATE.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 31, 1842.