Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Here was an appalling picture presented: dissolution of the Union, on either hand, and one or the other of the alternatives obliged to be taken. If persisted in, the opponents to the protective system, in the South, were to make the dissolution; if abandoned, its friends, in the North, were to do it. Two citizens, whose word was law to two great parties, denounced the same event, from opposite causes, and one of which causes was obliged to occur. The crisis required a hero-patriot at the head of the government, and Providence had reserved one for the occasion. There had been a design, in some, to bring Jackson forward for the Presidency, in 1816, and again, in 1820, when he held back. He was brought forward, in 1824, and defeated. These three successive postponements brought him to the right years, for which Providence seemed to have destined him, and which he would have missed, if elected at either of the three preceding elections. It was a reservation above human wisdom or foresight; and gave to the American people (at the moment they wanted him) the man of head, and heart, and nerve, to do what the crisis required: who possessed the confidence of the people, and who knew no course, in any danger, but that of duty and patriotism; and had no feeling, in any extremity but that God and the people would sustain him. Such a man was wanted, in 1832, and was found – found before, but reserved for use now.

The representatives from the South, generally but especially those from South Carolina, while depicting the distress of their section of the Union, and the reversed aspect which had come upon their affairs, less prosperous now than before the formation of the Union, attributed the whole cause of this change to the action of the federal government, in the levy and distribution of the public revenue; to the protective system, which was now assuming permanency, and increasing its exactions; and to a course of expenditure which carried to the North what was levied on the South. The democratic party generally concurred in the belief that this system was working injuriously upon the South, and that this injury ought to be relieved; that it was a cause of dissatisfaction with the Union, which a regard for the Union required to be redressed; but all did not concur in the cause of Southern eclipse in the race of prosperity which their representatives assigned; and, among them, Mr. Dallas, who thus spoke:

"The impressive and gloomy description of the senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hayne], as to the actual state and wretched prospects of his immediate fellow-citizens, awakens the liveliest sympathy, and should command our attention. It is their right; it is our duty. I cannot feel indifferent to the sufferings of any portion of the American people; and esteem it inconsistent with the scope and purpose of the federal constitution, that any majority, no matter how large, should connive at, or protract the oppression or misery of any minority, no matter how small. I disclaim and detest the idea of making one part subservient to another; of feasting upon the extorted substance of my countrymen; of enriching my own region, by draining the fertility and resources of a neighbor; of becoming wealthy with spoils which leave their legitimate owners impoverished and desolate. But, sir, I want proof of a fact, whose existence, at least as described, it is difficult even to conceive; and, above all, I want the true causes of that fact to be ascertained; to be brought within the reach of legislative remedy, and to have that remedy of a nature which may be applied without producing more mischiefs than those it proposes to cure. The proneness to exaggerate social evils is greatest with the most patriotic. Temporary embarrassment is sensitively apprehended to be permanent. Every day's experience teaches how apt we are to magnify partial into universal distress, and with what difficulty an excited imagination rescues itself from despondency. It will not do, sir, to act upon the glowing or pathetic delineations of a gifted orator; it will not do to become enlisted, by ardent exhortations, in a crusade against established systems of policy; it will not do to demolish the walls of our citadel to the sounds of plaintiff eloquence, or fire the temple at the call of impassioned enthusiasm.

"What, sir, is the cause of Southern distress? Has any gentleman yet ventured to designate it? Can any one do more than suppose, or argumentatively assume it? I am neither willing nor competent to flatter. To praise the honorable senator from South Carolina, would be

'To add perfume to the violet —Wasteful and ridiculous excess.'

But, if he has failed to discover the source of the evils he deplores, who can unfold it? Amid the warm and indiscriminating denunciations with which he has assailed the policy of protecting domestic manufactures and native produce, he frankly avows that he would not 'deny that there are other causes, besides the tariff, which have contributed to produce the evils which he has depicted.' What are those 'other causes?' In what proportion have they acted? How much of this dark shadowing is ascribable to each singly, and to all in combination? Would the tariff be at all felt or denounced, if these other causes were not in operation? Would not, in fact, its influence, its discriminations, its inequalities, its oppressions, but for these 'other causes,' be shaken, by the elasticity and energy, and exhaustless spirit of the South, as 'dew-drops from the lion's mane?' These inquiries, sir, must be satisfactorily answered before we can be justly required to legislate away an entire system. If it be the root of all evil, let it be exposed and demolished. If its poisonous exhalations be but partial, let us preserve such portions as are innoxious. If, as the luminary of day, it be pure and salutary in itself, let us not wish it extinguished, because of the shadows, clouds, and darkness which obscure its brightness or impede its vivifying power.

"That other causes still, Mr. President, for Southern distress, do exist, cannot be doubted. They combine with the one I have indicated, and are equally unconnected with the manufacturing policy. One of these it is peculiarly painful to advert to; and when I mention it, I beg honorable senators not to suppose that I do it in the spirit of taunt, of reproach, or of idle declamation. Regarding it as a misfortune merely, not as a fault; as a disease inherited, not incurred; perhaps to be alleviated, but not eradicated, I should feel self-condemned were I to treat it other than as an existing fact, whose merit or demerit, apart from the question under debate, is shielded from commentary by the highest and most just considerations. I refer, sir, to the character of Southern labor, in itself, and in its influence on others. Incapable of adaptation to the ever-varying charges of human society and existence, it retains the communities in which it is established, in a condition of apparent and comparative inertness. The lights of science, and the improvements of art, which vivify and accelerate elsewhere, cannot penetrate, or, if they do, penetrate with dilatory inefficiency, among its operatives. They are merely instinctive and passive. While the intellectual industry of other parts of this country springs elastically forward at every fresh impulse, and manual labor is propelled and redoubled by countless inventions, machines, and contrivances, instantly understood and at once exercised, the South remains stationary, inaccessible to such encouraging and invigorating aids. Nor is it possible to be wholly blind to the moral effect of this species of labor upon those freemen among whom it exists. A disrelish for humble and hardy occupation; a pride adverse to drudgery and toil; a dread that to partake in the employments allotted to color, may be accompanied also by its degradation, are natural and inevitable. The high and lofty qualities which, in other scenes and for other purposes, characterize and adorn our Southern brethren, are fatal to the enduring patience, the corporal exertion, and the painstaking simplicity, by which only a successful yeomanry can be formed. When, in fact, sir, the senator from South Carolina asserts that 'slaves are too improvident, too incapable of that minute, constant, delicate attention, and that persevering industry which is essential to the success of manufacturing establishments,' he himself admits the defect in the condition of Southern labor, by which the progress of his favorite section must be retarded. He admits an inability to keep pace with the rest of the world. He admits an inherent weakness; a weakness neither engendered nor aggravated by the tariff – which, as societies are now constituted and directed, must drag in the rear, and be distanced in the common race."

Thus spoke Mr. Dallas, senator from Pennsylvania; and thus speaking, gave offence to no Southern man; and seemed to be well justified in what he said, from the historical fact that the loss of ground, in the race of prosperity, had commenced in the South before the protective system began – before that epoch year, 1816, when it was first installed as a system, and so installed by the power of the South Carolina vote and talent. But the levy and expenditure of the federal government was, doubtless, the main cause of this Southern decadence – so unnatural in the midst of her rich staples – and which had commenced before 1816.

It so happened, that while the advocates of the American system were calling so earnestly for government protection, to enable them to sustain themselves at home, that the custom-house books were showing that a great many species of our manufactures, and especially the cotton, were going abroad to far distant countries; and sustaining themselves on remote theatres against all competition, and beyond the range of any help from our laws. Mr. Clay, himself, spoke of this exportation, to show the excellence of our fabrics, and that they were worth protection; I used the same fact to show that they were independent of protection; and said:

"And here I would ask, how many and which are the articles that require the present high rate of protection? Certainly not the cotton manufacture; for, the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], who appears on this floor as the leading champion of domestic manufactures, and whose admissions of fact must be conclusive against his arguments of theory! this senator tells you, and dwells upon the disclosure with triumphant exultation, that American cottons are now exported to Asia, and sold at a profit in the cotton markets of Canton and Calcutta! Surely, sir, our tariff laws of 1824 and 1828 are not in force in Bengal and China. And I appeal to all mankind for the truth of the inference, that, if our cottons can go to these countries, and be sold at a profit without any protection at all, they can stay at home, and be sold to our own citizens, without loss, under a less protection than fifty and two hundred and fifty per centum! One fact, Mr. President, is said to be worth a thousand theories; I will add that it is worth a hundred thousand speeches; and this fact that the American cottons now traverse the one-half of the circumference of this globe – cross the equinoctial line; descend to the antipodes; seek foreign markets on the double theatre of British and Asiatic competition, and come off victorious from the contest – is a full and overwhelming answer to all the speeches that have been made, or ever can be made, in favor of high protecting duties on these cottons at home. The only effect of such duties is to cut off importations – to create monopoly at home – to enable our manufacturers to sell their goods higher to their own christian fellow-citizens than to the pagan worshippers of Fo and of Brahma! to enable the inhabitants of the Ganges and the Burrampooter to wear American cottons upon cheaper terms than the inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi. And every Western citizen knows the fact, that when these shipments of American cottons were making to the extremities of Asia, the price of these same cottons was actually raised twenty and twenty-five per cent., in all the towns of the West; with this further difference to our prejudice, that we can only pay for them in money, while the inhabitants of Asia make payment in the products of their own country.

"This is what the gentleman's admission proved; but I do not come here to argue upon admissions, whether candid or unguarded, of the adversary speakers. I bring my own facts and proofs; and, really, sir, I have a mind to complain that the gentleman's admission about cottons has crippled the force of my argument; that it has weakened its effect by letting out half at a time, and destroyed its novelty, by an anticipated revelation. The truth is, I have this fact (that we exported domestic cottons) treasured up in my magazine of material! and intended to produce it, at the proper time, to show that we exported this article, not to Canton and Calcutta alone, but to all quarters of the globe; not a few cargoes only, by way of experiment, but in great quantities, as a regular trade, to the amount of a million and a quarter of dollars, annually; and that, of this amount, no less than forty thousand dollars' worth, in the year 1880, had done what the combined fleets and armies of the world could not do; it had scaled the rock of Gibraltar, penetrated to the heart of the British garrison, taken possession of his Britannic Majesty's soldiers, bound their arms, legs, and bodies, and strutted in triumph over the ramparts and batteries of that unattackable fortress. And now, sir, I will use no more of the gentleman's admissions; I will draw upon my own resources; and will show nearly the whole list of our domestic manufacture to be in the same flourishing condition with cottons, actually going abroad to seek competition, without protection, in every foreign clime, and contending victoriously with foreign manufactures wherever they can encounter them. I read from the custom-house returns, of 1830 – the last that has been printed. Listen to it:

"This is the list of domestic manufactures exported to foreign countries. It comprehends the whole, or nearly the whole, of that long catalogue of items which the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] read to us, on the second day of his discourse; and shows the whole to be going abroad, without a shadow of protection, to seek competition, in foreign markets, with the foreign goods of all the world. The list of articles I have read, contains near fifty varieties of manufactures (and I have omitted many minor articles) amounting, in value, to near six millions of dollars! And now behold the diversity of human reasoning! The senator from Kentucky exhibits a list of articles manufactured in the United States, and argues that the slightest diminution in the enormous protection they now enjoy, will overwhelm the whole in ruin, and cover the country with distress; I read the same identical list, to show that all these articles go abroad and contend victoriously with their foreign rivals in all foreign markets."

Mr. Clay had attributed to the tariffs of 1824 and 1828 the reviving and returning prosperity of the country, while in fact it was the mere effect of recovery from prostration, and in spite of these tariffs, instead of by their help. Business had been brought to a stand during the disastrous period which ensued the establishment of the Bank of the United States. It was a period of stagnation, of settlement, of paying up, of getting clear of loads of debt; and starting afresh. It was the strong man, freed from the burthen under which he had long been prostrate, and getting on his feet again. In the West I knew that this was the process, and that our revived prosperity was entirely the result of our own resources, independent of, and in spite of federal legislation; and so declared it in my speech. I said:

"The fine effects of the high tariff upon the prosperity of the West have been celebrated on this floor: with how much reason, let facts respond, and the people judge! I do not think we are indebted to the high tariff for our fertile lands and our navigable rivers; and I am certain we are indebted to these blessings for the prosperity we enjoy. In all that comes from the soil, the people of the West are rich. They have an abundant supply of food for man and beast, and a large surplus to send abroad. They have the comfortable living which industry creates for itself in a rich soil; but, beyond this, they are poor. They have none of the splendid works which imply the presence of the moneyed power! No Appian or Flaminian ways; no roads paved or McAdamized; no canals, except what are made upon borrowed means; no aqueducts; no bridges of stone across our innumerable streams; no edifices dedicated to eternity; no schools for the fine arts: not a public library for which an ordinary scholar would not apologize. And why none of those things? Have the people of the West no taste for public improvements, for the useful and the fine arts, and for literature? Certainly they have a very strong taste for them; but they have no money! not enough for private and current uses, not enough to defray our current expenses, and buy necessaries! without thinking of public improvements. We have no money! and that is a tale which has been told too often here – chanted too dolefully in the book of lamentations which was composed for the death of the Maysville road – to be denied or suppressed now. They have no adequate supply of money. And why? Have they no exports? Nothing to send abroad? Certainly they have exports. Behold the marching myriads of living animals annually taking their departure from the heart of the West, defiling through the gorges of the Cumberland, the Alleghany, and the Apalachian mountains, or traversing the plains of the South, diverging as they march, and spreading themselves all over that vast segment of our territorial circle which lies between the debouches of the Mississippi and the estuary of the Potomac! Behold, on the other hand, the flying steamboats, and the fleets of floating arks, loaded with the products of the forest, the farm, and the pasture, following the course of our noble rivers, and bearing their freights to that great city which revives, upon the banks of the Mississippi, the name5 of the greatest of the emperors that ever reigned upon the banks of the Tiber, and who eclipsed the glory of his own heroic exploits by giving an order to his legions never to levy a contribution of salt upon a Roman citizen! Behold this double line of exports, and observe the refluent currents of gold and silver which result from them! Large are the supplies – millions are the amount which is annually poured into the West from these double exportations; enough to cover the face of the earth with magnificent improvements, and to cram every industrious pocket with gold and silver. But where is this money? for it is not in the country! Where does it go? for go it does, and scarcely leaves a vestige of its transit behind! Sir, it goes to the Northeast! to the seat of the American system! there it goes! and thus it goes!"

Mr. Clay had commenced his speech with an apology for what might be deemed failing powers on account of advancing age. He said he was getting old, and might not be able to fulfil the expectation, and requite the attention, of the attending crowd; and wished the task could have fallen to younger and abler hands. This apology for age when no diminution of mental or bodily vigor was perceptible, induced several speakers to commence their replies with allusions to it, generally complimentary, but not admitting the fact. Mr. Hayne gracefully said, that he had lamented the advances of age, and mourned the decay of his eloquence, so eloquently as to prove that it was still in full vigor; and that he had made an able and ingenious argument, fully sustaining his high reputation as an accomplished orator. General Smith, of Maryland, said that he could not complain himself of the infirmities of age, though older than the senator from Kentucky, nor could find in his years any apology for the insufficiency of his speech. Mr. Clay thought this was intended to be a slur upon him, and replied in a spirit which gave rise to the following sharp encounter:

"Mr. Smith then rose, and said he was sorry to find that he had unintentionally offended the honorable gentleman from Kentucky. In referring to the vigorous age he himself enjoyed, he had not supposed he should give offence to others who complained of the infirmities of age. The gentleman from Kentucky was the last who should take the remark as disparaging to his vigor and personal appearance; for, when that gentleman spoke to us of his age, he heard a young lady near him exclaim – "Old, why I think he is mighty pretty." The honorable gentleman, on Friday last, made a similitude where none existed. I, said Mr. S., had suggested the necessity of mutual forbearance in settling the tariff, and, thereupon, the gentleman vociferated loudly and angrily about removals from office. He said I was a leader in the system. I deny the fact. I never exercised the least influence in effecting a removal, and on the contrary, I interfered, successfully, to prevent the removal of two gentlemen in office. I am charged with making a committee on roads and canals, adverse to internal improvement. If this be so, it is by mistake. I certainly supposed every gentleman named on that committee but one to be friendly to internal improvement. To the committee on manufactures I assigned four out of five who were known to be friendly to the protective system. The rights of the minority, he had endeavored, also, in arranging the committee, to secure. The appointment of the committees he had found one of the most difficult and onerous tasks he had ever undertaken. One-third of the house were lawyers, all of whom wanted to be put upon some important committee. The oath which the senator had tendered, he hoped he would not take. In the year 1795, Mr. S. said, he had sustained a protective duty against the opposition of a member from Pittsburg. Previous to the year 1822, he had always given incidental support to manufactures, in fixing the tariff. He was a warm friend to the tariff of 1816, which he still regarded as a wise and beneficial law. He hoped, then, the gentleman would not take his oath.

"Mr. Clay placed, he said, a high value on the compliment of which the honorable senator was the channel of communication; and he the more valued it, inasmuch as he did not recollect more than once before, in his life, to have received a similar compliment. He was happy to find that the honorable gentleman disclaimed the system of proscription; and he should, with his approbation, hereafter cite his authority in opposition to it. The Committee on Roads and Canals, whatever were the gentleman's intentions in constructing it, had a majority of members whose votes and speeches against internal improvements were matter of notoriety. The gentleman's appeal to his acts in '95, is perfectly safe; for, old as I am, my knowledge of his course does not extend back that far. He would take the period which the gentleman named, since 1822. It comes, then, to this: The honorable gentleman was in favor of protecting manufactures; but he had turned – I need not use the word – he has abandoned manufactures. Thus:

"Old politicians chew on wisdom past,And totter on in blunders to the last."

"Mr. Smith. – The last allusion is unworthy of the gentleman. Totter, sir, I totter? Though some twenty years older than the gentleman, I can yet stand firm, and am yet able to correct his errors. I could take a view of the gentleman's course, which would show how inconsistent he has been. Mr. Clay exclaimed: 'Take it, sir, take it – I dare you.' [Cries of "order."] No, sir, said Mr. S., I will not take it. I will not so far disregard what is due to the dignity of the Senate."

Mr. Hayne concluded one of his speeches with a declaration of the seriousness of the Southern resistance to the tariff, and with a feeling appeal to senators on all sides of the house to meet their Southern brethren in the spirit of conciliation, and restore harmony to a divided people by removing from among them the never-failing source of contention. He said:

"Let not gentlemen so far deceive themselves as to suppose that the opposition of the South to the protecting system is not based on high and lofty principles. It has nothing to do with party politics, or the mere elevation of men. It rises far above all such considerations. Nor is it influenced chiefly by calculations of interest, but is founded in much nobler impulses. The instinct of self-interest might have taught us an easier way of relieving ourselves from this oppression. It wanted but the will, to have supplied ourselves with every article embraced in the protective system, free of duty, without any other participation on our part than a simple consent to receive them. But, sir, we have scorned, in a contest for our rights, to resort to any but open and fair means to maintain them. The spirit with which we have entered into this business, is akin to that which was kindled in the bosom of our fathers when they were made the victims of oppression; and if it has not displayed itself in the same way, it is because we have ever cherished the strongest feelings of confraternity towards our brethren, and the warmest and most devoted attachment to the Union. If we have been, in any degree, divided among ourselves in this matter, the source of that division, let gentlemen be assured, has not arisen so much from any difference of opinion as to the true character of the oppression, as from the different degrees of hope of redress. All parties have for years past been looking forward to this crisis for the fulfilment of their hopes, or the confirmation of their fears. And God grant that the result may be auspicious.