THE FATHERS ON PROTECTIVE TARIFF.
Davenport, Iowa.
On what authority does Our Curiosity Shop class Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and, still more strange to say, General Jackson with the advocates of protective tariff?
Free Trader.
Answer.—The first Congress that assembled under our present Constitution passed the first tariff. In the preamble to that act it is expressly affirmed that such tariff was necessary “to pay the public debt, provide revenue, etc., and for the protection and encouragement of American manufactures.” The necessity of such protection was urged in the messages of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison James Monroe, John Q. Adams, and Andrew Jackson. In his annual message of Dec. 15, 1802, among other proper objects of government, Jefferson enumerates the following; “To foster our fisheries as nurseries of navigation and for the nurture of man; and to protect the manufactures adapted to our circumstances.” In his annual message of 1806, apprehending a surplus revenue, he says; “To what other objects shall these surpluses be appropriated, and the whole surplus of impost after the entire discharge of the public debt? Shall we suppress the impost (or tariff) and give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufactures?” He then suggests that on a few articles the impost might be wisely suppressed, but in regard to the great mass of them he says; “The patriotism of the people would prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of public education, roads, rivers, canals, and other objects of public improvement.” In his message of Nov. 8, 1808, after referring with gratification to the increase of “internal manufactures and improvements,” he expresses the hope that such establishments of manufacturing industry “formed and forming, will, under the auspices of cheaper materials and substance, the freedom of labor from taxation with us, and of protecting duties and prohibitions, become permanent.” Says President Monroe, in his inaugural address of March 5, 1817; “Our manufactures will likewise require the systematic and fostering care of the government. Possessing, as we do, all the raw materials, the fruit of our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend, in the degree we have done, on supplies from other countries. It is important, too, that the capital which nourishes our manufactures should be domestic, as its influences in that case, instead of exhausting, as it may do in foreign hands, would be felt advantageously for agriculture and every other branch or industry. Equally important is it to provide at home a market for our raw materials, as by extending the competition it will enhance the price and protect the cultivator against the casualties incident to foreign markets.”
In his message of Dec. 7, 1830, General Jackson says: “The power to impose duties on imports originally belonged to the several States. The right to adjust these duties, with the view to the encouragement of domestic branches of industry, is so completely incidental to that power, that it is difficult to suppose the existence of the one without the other.” He proceeds to say that the denial of the right of the Federal Government “to exercise this power for the purpose of protection would he to present the anomaly of a people stripped of the right to foster their own industry, and to counteract the most selfish and destructive policy which might be adopted by foreign nations. This surely cannot be the case. This indispensable power, thus surrendered by the States, must be within the scope of the authority on the subject expressly delegated to Congress. In this conclusion I am confirmed as well by the opinions of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, who have each repeatedly recommended the exercise of this right under the Constitution, as by the uniform practice of Congress, the continued acquiescence of the States, and the general understanding of the people.” In a letter to Dr. Coleman, of North Carolina, dated at Washington City, April 20, 1824, General Jackson wrote: “If we omit or refuse to use the gifts which Providence has extended to us, we deserve not the continuation of His blessing. He has filled our mountains and our plains with minerals—with lead, iron, and copper—and given us a climate and soil for the growing of hemp and wool. These being the great materials of our National defense, they ought to have extended to them adequate protection; that our manufacturers and laborers may be placed in a fair competition with those of Europe, and that we have within our country a supply of those leading and important articles so essential to war. I will ask what is the real situation of the agriculturist? Where has the American farmer a market for his surplus produce? Except for cotton he has neither a foreign nor a home market. Common sense at once points out the remedy. Take from agriculture in the United States 600,000 men, women, and children and you will at once give a market for more breadstuffs than all Europe now furnishes us. In short, sir, we have been too long subject to the policy of British merchants. It is time we should become a little more Americanized, and instead of feeding paupers and laborers of England, feed our own, or else in a short time, by continuing our present policy, we shall be rendered paupers ourselves.” In consonance with these sentiments, Jackson, together with Martin Van Buren and Silas Wright, the leaders of the Northern Democracy, and the great mass of the Jackson representatives from the free States, voted for the tariff of 1828, the highest protective tariff ever levied in this country before the war of the rebellion. In the next subsequent decade the Democratic party, led by the cotton States, and determined to defeat the Whig party led by the great Protectionist, Henry Clay, espoused free trade.
DON CARLOS.
Kingman, Kan.
Who and what was Don Carlos?