Mr. Clay, in the course of the debate, said: "What, again, I would ask, is the cause of the unhappy condition of our country, which I have fairly depicted? It is to be found in the fact that, during almost the whole existence of this government, we have shaped our industry, our navigation, and our commerce, in reference to an extraordinary war in Europe, and to foreign markets which no longer exist; in the fact that we have depended too much on foreign sources of supply, and excited too little the native; in the fact that, while we have cultivated, with assiduous care, our foreign resources, we have suffered those at home to wither, in a state of neglect and abandonment. The consequence of the termination of the war of Europe, has been the resumption of European commerce, European navigation, and the extension of European agriculture, in all its branches. Europe, therefore, has no longer occasion for any thing like the same extent as that which she had during her wars, for American commerce, American navigation, the produce of American industry. Europe in commotion, and convulsed throughout all her members, is to America no longer the same Europe as she is now, tranquil, and watching with the most vigilant attention, all her own peculiar interests, without regard to their operation on us. The effect of this altered state of Europe upon us, has been to circumscribe the employment of our marine, and greatly to reduce the value of the produce of our territorial labor. . . . . The greatest want of civilized society is a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the products of the labor of its members. This market may exist at home or abroad, or both, but it must exist somewhere, if society prospers; and, wherever it does exist, it should be competent to the absorption of the entire surplus production. It is most desirable that there should be both a home and a foreign market. But with respect to their relative superiority, I can not entertain a doubt. The home market is first in order, and paramount in importance. The object of the bill under consideration, is to create this home market, and to lay the foundation of a genuine American policy. It is opposed; and it is incumbent on the partisans of the foreign policy (terms which I shall use without any invidious intent) to demonstrate that the foreign market is an adequate vent for the surplus produce of our labor. But is it so? 1. Foreign nations can not, if they would, take our surplus produce. . . . . 2. If they could, they would not. . . . . We have seen, I think, the causes of the distress of the country. We have seen that an exclusive dependence upon the foreign market must lead to a still severer distress, to impoverishment, to ruin. We must, then, change somewhat our course. We must give a new direction to some portion of our industry. We must speedily adopt a genuine American policy. Still cherishing a foreign market, let us create also a home market, to give further scope to the consumption of the produce of American industry. Let us counteract the policy of foreigners, and withdraw the support which we now give to their industry, and stimulate that of our own country. . . . . The creation of a home market is not only necessary to procure for our agriculture a just reward of its labors, but it is indispensable to obtain a supply of our necessary wants. If we can not sell, we can not buy. That portion of our population (and we have seen that it is not less than four-fifths) which makes comparatively nothing that foreigners will buy, has nothing to make purchases with from foreigners. It is in vain that we are told of the amount of our exports, supplied by the planting interest. They may enable the planting interest to supply all its wants; but they bring no ability to the interests not planting, unless, which can not be pretended, the planting interest was an adequate vent for the surplus produce of all the labor of all other interests. . . . . But this home market, highly desirable as it is, can only be created and cherished by the protection of our own legislation against the inevitable prostration of our industry, which must ensue from the action of foreign policy and legislation. . . . . The sole object of the tariff is to tax the produce of foreign industry, with the view of promoting American industry. . . . . But it is said by the honorable gentleman from Virginia, that the South, owing to the character of a certain portion of its population, can not engage in the business of manufacturing. . . . . The circumstances of its degradation unfits it for manufacturing arts. The well-being of the other, and the larger part of our population, requires the introduction of those arts.
"What is to be done in this conflict? The gentleman would have us abstain from adopting a policy called for by the interests of the greater and freer part of the population. But is that reasonable? Can it be expected that the interests of the greater part should be made to bend to the condition of the servile part of our population? That, in effect, would be to make us the slaves of slaves. . . . . I am sure that the patriotism of the South may be exclusively relied upon to reject a policy which should be dictated by considerations altogether connected with that degraded class, to the prejudice of the residue of our population. But does not a perseverance in the foreign policy, as it now exists, in fact, make all parts of the Union, not planting, tributary to the planting parts? What is the argument? It is, that we must continue freely to receive the produce of foreign industry, without regard to the protection of American industry, that a market may be retained for the sale abroad of the produce of the planting portion of the country; and that, if we lessen the consumption, in all parts of America, those which are not planting, as well as the planting sections, of foreign manufactures, we diminish to that extent the foreign market for the planting produce. The existing state of things, indeed, presents a sort of tacit compact between the cotton-grower and the British manufacturer, the stipulations of which are, on the part of the cotton-grower, that the whole of the United States, the other portions as well as the cotton-growing, shall remain open and unrestricted in the consumption of British manufactures; and, on the part of the British manufacturer, that, in consideration thereof, he will continue to purchase the cotton of the South. Thus, then, we perceive that the proposed measure, instead of sacrificing the South to the other parts of the Union, seeks only to preserve them from being actually sacrificed under the operation of the tacit compact which I have described."
The opposition to the Protective Tariff, by the South, arose from two causes: the first openly avowed at the time, and the second clearly deducible from the policy it pursued: the one to secure the foreign market for its cotton, the other to obtain a bountiful supply of provisions at cheap rates. Cotton was admitted free of duty into foreign countries, and Southern statesmen feared its exclusion, if our government increased the duties on foreign fabrics. The South exported about twice as much of that staple as was supplied to Europe by all other countries, and there were indications favoring the desire it entertained of monopolizing the foreign markets. The West India planters could not import food, but at such high rates as to make it impracticable to grow cotton at prices low enough to suit the English manufacturer. To purchase cotton cheaply, was essential to the success of his scheme of monopolizing its manufacture, and supplying the world with clothing. The close proximity of the provision and cotton-growing districts in the United States, gave its planters advantages over all other portions of the world. But they could not monopolize the markets, unless they could obtain a cheap supply of food and clothing for their negroes, and raise their cotton at such reduced prices as to undersell their rivals. A manufacturing population, with its mechanical coadjutors, in the midst of the provision-growers, on a scale such as the protective policy contemplated, it was conceived, would create a permanent market for their products, and enhance the price; whereas, if this manufacturing could be prevented, and a system of free trade adopted, the South would constitute the principal provision market of the country, and the fertile lands of the North supply the cheap food demanded for its slaves. As the tariff policy, in the outset, contemplated the encouragement of the production of iron, hemp, whisky, and the establishment of woolen manufactories, principally, the South found its interests but slightly identified with the system—the coarser qualities of cottons, only, being manufactured in the country, and, even these, on a diminished scale, as compared with the cotton crops of the South. Cotton, up to the date when this controversy had been fairly commenced, had been worth, in the English market, an average price of from 297/10 to 484/10 cents per lb.[31] But at this period, a wide spread and ruinous depression both in the culture and manufacture of the article, occurred—cotton, in 1826, having fallen, in England, as low as 119/10 to 189/10 cents per lb. The home market, then, was too inconsiderable to be of much importance, and there existed little hope of its enlargement to the extent demanded by its increasing cultivation. The planters, therefore, looked abroad to the existing markets, rather than to wait for tardily creating one at home. For success in the foreign markets, they relied, mainly, upon preparing themselves to produce cotton at the reduced prices then prevailing in Europe. All agricultural products, except cotton, being excluded from foreign markets, the planters found themselves almost the sole exporters of the country; and it was to them a source of chagrin, that the North did not, at once, co-operate with them in augmenting the commerce of the nation.
At this point in the history of the controversy, politicians found it an easy matter to produce feelings of the deepest hostility between the opposing parties. The planters were led to believe that the millions of revenue collected off the goods imported, was so much deducted from the value of the cotton that paid for them, either in the diminished price they received abroad, or in the increased price which they paid for the imported articles. To enhance the duties, for the protection of our manufacturers, they were persuaded, would be so much of an additional tax upon themselves, for the benefit of the North; and, beside, to give the manufacturer such a monopoly of the home market for his fabrics, would enable him to charge purchasers an excess over the true value of his stuffs, to the whole amount of the duty. By the protective policy, the planters expected to have the cost of both provisions and clothing increased, and their ability to monopolize the foreign markets diminished in a corresponding degree. If they could establish free trade, it would insure the American market to foreign manufacturers; secure the foreign markets for their leading staple; repress home manufactures; force a large number of the Northern men into agriculture; multiply the growth, and diminish the price of provisions; feed and clothe their slaves at lower rates; produce their cotton for a third or fourth of former prices; rival all other countries in its cultivation; monopolize the trade in the article throughout the whole of Europe; and build up a commerce and a navy that would make us ruler of the seas.
CHAPTER VIII.
Tariff controversy continued—Mr. Hayne—Mr. Carter—Mr. Govan—Mr. Martindale—Mr. Buchanan—Sugar Planters invoked to aid Free Trade—The West also invoked—Its pecuniary embarrassments for want of markets—Henry Baldwin—Remarks on the views of the parties—State of the world—Dread of the Protective policy by the Planters—Their schemes to avert its consequences, and promote Free Trade.
To understand the sentiments of the South, on the Protective Policy, as expressed by its statesmen, we must again quote from the Congressional Debates of 1824:
Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "But how, I would seriously ask, is it possible for the home market to supply the place of the foreign market, for our cotton? We supply Great Britain with the raw material, out of which she furnishes the Continent of Europe, nay, the whole world, with cotton goods. Now, suppose our manufactories could make every yard of cloth we consume, that would furnish a home market for no more than 20,000,000 lbs. out of the 180,000,000 lbs. of cotton now shipped to Great Britain; leaving on our hands 160,000,000 lbs., equal to two-thirds of our whole produce. . . . . Considering this scheme of promoting certain employments, at the expense of others, as unequal, oppressive, and unjust—viewing prohibition as the means, and the destruction of all foreign commerce as the end of this policy—I take this occasion to declare, that we shall feel ourselves, justified in embracing the very first opportunity of repealing all such laws as may be passed for the promotion of these objects."
Mr. Carter, of South Carolina, said: "Another danger to which the present measure would expose this country, and one in which the Southern States have a deep and vital interest, would be the risk we incur, by this system of exclusion, of driving Great Britain to countervailing measures, and inducing all other countries, with whom the United States have any considerable trading connections, to resort to measures of retaliation. There are countries possessing vast capacities for the production of rice, of cotton, and of tobacco, to which England might resort to supply herself. She might apply herself to Brazil, Bengal, and Egypt, for her cotton; to South America, as well as to her colonies, for her tobacco; and to China and Turkey for her rice."
