The Congressional Globe, Volume 26: Thirty-Second Congress, Second Session Page: 37
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1862.
THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
37
per cent., and would raise the highest possible
revenue at that duty. Would I have the same
duty upon each of these articles out of respect to
the horizontal principle? We ought to measure
the capacity for duty of each article, and adjust
the duty accordingly-
I was about to conclude by saying, that if twelve
months be permitted to elapse, and this discussion
is deferred to ti.e commencement of the next Con-
gress, we will not get a bill through even at the
long session of Congress. We have failed too
often, ar.d always would have failed, but for ex-
pedients by the prominent friends of free trade in
the session of 1;>46.
Mr. BROWN, of Mississippi. I desire to call
the gentleman 'a attention to one point he has made.
He seems to be apprehensive that, under the op-
eration of the present t.iritT, we are in danger of a
commercial revulsion. Tiie pre-ent taritThas raised
a larger amount of revenue than the Government
consumes. One of the chief complaints is, that we
have more revenue than our wants demand. The
gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. Wood-
ward,] if I understand the drift of his argument,
is in favor of reducing the duties. The point
which I submit to him is this: If you reduce the
duties, will you not necessarily increase the amount
of imports; and in doing that, will you not of ne-
cessity make the danser more imminent of that
very commercial revulsion of which the gentle-
man seems to be apprehensive?
Mr. WOODWARD. Revulsions are brought
on by the p ivate acts of individuals. The Govern-
ment does not bring them on, and the Government
cannot keep them off. It is the excessive issue of
bank paper that brings them on; it is buying too
largely on credit; and if people will do it, let them
suffer for it. The Government does not bring on
these revulsions, and it ought not to be looked to
to relieve the country from them
Mr. CL1NGMAN. I desire to ask the gentle-
man from South Carolina a question. I agree with
him in the general doctrine that this expansion of
bank currency is likely to be attended with such
effects as he attributes to it. But since the last
revulsion, the United States have become a great
gold-producing country—producing sixty or sev-
enty millions of gold annually, and exporting some
forty or fifty millions. ?Tow, the question I wish
to put to my friend from South Carolina is this:
Suppose there should be a pressure here, would
not the effect of it really be to stop this export of
forty or fifty millions of gold, and thus prevent
the revulsion from operating as it did formerly?
For instance, if things became very tight, instead
of relying on bank currency aione, and sending
abroad fojty or fifty millions of gold, that specie
might be retained in this country, and no such evils
■a the gentleman seems to apprehend would result.
It strikes me, therefore, that as long as we con-
tinue to get gold in much larger quantities than we
need it, this system will not produce the injury
which the gentleman apprehends. But the mo-
ment we stop producing gold, or the moment we
produce less than sufficient to supply our wants,
then I think this difficulty will present itself.
Mr. WOODWARD. My friend has stated
what I endeavored to state, that the increase in
the production of gold has operated to postpone
this crisis. But I think he falls into one error.
He seems to suppose that as long as the yield of
gold continues what it is, we will have a safe-
guard against such revulsions for all future time,
or for an indefinite future. I dissent from that.
It will only postpone it for a certain time, under
the laws of political economy. The yield of gold
roust be progressive in order to put off such a
crisis. If a people will have a bank'currency
based upon credit—three paper capitals to one
specie capital, or probabl y no specie capital at ail—
they must suffer the consequence, and all the gov-
ernments on God's earth cannot save them from it.
Now, I think, however, that there is a probability
that the yield of the gold mines of California will
be for a time progressive. The earth seems to
contain an indefinite quantity of gold. The yield
thus far has been in proportion to the population.
Just exactly as the population has increased in
Califo/nia, the produce of gold has increased; and
we have a right to expect that if the population
doubles during twenty years, the increase of gold
may also double, and that may save the country
from revulsions.
Mr. CUNGMAN. I do not think my friend
understood me exactly. My viewis this: thatuntil
the export of gold has to be stopped this danger will '
not occur. As long as we are a great gold-export-
ing country the want of money here will check that
exportation and must check it, and whilst we pro-
duce a great deal more gold than we need the dan-
ger is not to be apprehended.
Mr. W00D WARD. So long as gold accumu-
lates for exportation we will be safe. But for every
dollar of gold you build up three dollars of paper,
and that is the way in which the danger is to come.
The exportation of gold, paying debts and getting
property in exchange for it, is the way to avoid a
revulsion. You either have to send abroad your
gold and buy useful merchandise with it, or if you
keep the gold you buy three times its quantity in
worthless shinplasters, and that is all you get by
it.
Mr. CLEVELAND. Mr. Chairman,all think-
ing men must agree that the subject of a modifica-
tion of the tariff is one of no ordinary interest; and
while we are debating it in this House, holders of
property to the amount of many hundred millions
of dollars, the moment they see what we are doing,
become sensitive and are affected to a very con-
siderable extent in anticipation of what may be
the action of Congress upon it.
It is a little singular that duing a two days' de-
bate here, no man has risen who does not feel it
his duty to advocate a reduction of duties for the
purpose of lessening the revenue without regard
to the great interests of the country.
It may be well, perhaps, to inquire at starting
what will be the effect of a policy such as advo-
cated by the gentleman from South Carolina,
[Mr. Woodward,] and by the gentleman from
New York, [Mr. Brooks,] (if the latter speaks as
he feels on this subject,) if adopted? Suppose,
for example, you reduce the duty on railroad iron,
cotton, and woolen goods, one third, do you not
necessarily thereby offer great inducements to the
capitalists of this country—and there never has
been a time when they were better able, and the
means to do so more readily within their reach, or
more abundant—to send abroad gold and silver
for the purchase of foreign goods with which to
glut our markets ? Is there a gentleman here who,
having reflected at all upon this subject, doubts
that this will be the result of such a reduction, and
that the impetus thus given to importation will
double the revenue of this country ? If, then, you
reduce the duties on these articles one third, under
the impression that you will thereby reduce the
revenue, the result will inevitably prove the mis-
take, as every member here must see that the tre-
mendous impetus thus given to importation in-
stead of depleting the Treasury, as the gentleman
from New York [Mr. Brooks] is seemingly desir-
ous of doing, will necessarily create a plethora
much greater than now exists. And yet, if I cor-
rectly understandgentlemen who have preceded me,
this reduction is advocated oil all sides of the
House—by both Whigs and Democrats. Why
it is preached at this time, and never before,
is a question which every gentleman must answer
for himself. It is not for me to speculate upon it.
The effect of this policy would be to produce an
increase of the very evil which the gentleman from
New York pretends to deprecate.
Suppose, sir, you succeed, by this novel mode of
legislation, in preventing the importation of iron,
who are to be the gainers? Certainly not the
manufacturers of iron in Pennsylvania, New Eng-
land, the western States, or elsewhere through
our country. Not the mass of laborers now em-
ployed in the furnaces, for every one of them
must suffer. Not the men who have now hun-
dreds of millions of dollars invested in the manu-
facture of woolen and cotton goods, for they, and
the thousands of laborers employed by them, must
also suffer. Who, then, is to gain by it? The
manufacturers of Europe, the men who have capi-
tal and who cannot command for it more than
'three per cent, at home. These capitalists will
be the gainers, and the people of this entire coun-
try, your own country, will be the losers. My
western friends flatter themselves that they are to
gain because iron and other articles of very gen-
eral necessity will be cheapened. So far from that,
they will be, not in the power of men who have
healthy competition to keep down prices, but in
the power of the monopolists of another country,
who can regulate prices to suit themselves. Thus
, they will bring about the very result, increased
prices, which gentlemen from the West seem now
desirous of avoiding.
I ask these gentlemen in all candor, before they
strike a vitnl blow at the interests of the New
England and middle States for the sake of a sup-
posed benefit to then-.selves, to pause and examine
this subject, and see if they will not feel the recoil
ot the blow, and if it will not prostrate their pres-
ent prosperity.
Now, sir, I deny that any one section of thi«
country can be benefited by an injury done to
another portion, or to any one of it's great inter-
ests, by legislation in Congress. Many a man
comes here, I know, with the idea that Ins duty is
confined merely to watching, and, as far as possi-
ble, advancing the interests of his particular sec-
tion; and he legislates with reference to that idea,
either for the purpose of making himself person-
ally popular at home, or because he cannot com-
prehend the interests of the whole country. No
legislation by Congress for the benefit of one sec-
tion to the injury of another, ever resulted in any-
thing but mischief to the entire country, and most
generally even to the section which it was intend-
ed to benefit. All partial legislation is unfair, and
ruinous in its results.
In regard to the resolution offered by the gen-
tleman from New York, [Mr. Brooks,] the other
day, I voted against it because it carried with it
instructions for a general reduction of duties.
When a question of this magnitude, a question in-
volving the interests of all sections of our Confed-
eracy is to be investigated, I am opposed to giving
instructions to the committee which may embar-
rass its action or the action of Congress. Why
instruct the committee at all' and why not vote to
appoint this committee without instructions? Will
it be said by the friends of a judicious tariff that
they are afraid to have this subject investigated and
discussed? i^re they afraid to meet the question
of free trade ? I for one participate in nonsuch idle
fears. I am in favor of free discussion; and if this
question can be taken out of politics and decided
upon its merits, the manufacturers have nothing
to fear; because free trade can never exist in this
1 country without a reduction of the price of labor
' to something near thfe standard in countries where
the Government is in the hands of the few, and all
legislation is for their benefit; where a laboring man
is treated as a mere machine, and compelled for
a mere existence to perform all the labor which
his physical ability will allow; and the gentleman
from South Carolina seems to understand that this
is to be ultimately the condition of the laborer in
this country; although he does not wish it, yet he
appears to think that this is the law of God* God
forbid, sir, that I should aid in any legi: ..uion
which is to result in an injury to labor. Let that
be degraded and we shall soon cease to be a ree
people.
I believe the Speaker may select seven men from •
this body who are competent to tak&up the whole
matter, give it a thorough investigation, free from
prejudice or party bias, and report their doings to
the House as well without instructions as with,
and especially without instructions to make a gen-
eral reduction.
Are we afraid to trust the Speaker in the selec-
tion of such a committee ? or to trust our brother
members whom the Speaker shall select? Why,
sir, that committee may find, and if they act dis-
creetly, in my judgment they will, that the true
policy of this Government is to remove entirely
the duty upon such articles as are not the growth
and product of our country. Take, for example,
the article of silk. My worthy friend from South
Carolina, [Mr. Woodward,] called upon the
House to say what dutiable article, of any con-
siderable importance, was not the product of this
country, or could not be produced here. This is
one, and-among other articles, we import millions
upon millions' worth of silks every year, by which
we enrich other countries. We support the labor
of others by this annual importation, and yet
! there are but few pounds of raw silk taken from
silk-worms within the limits of the United States.
' The gentleman from South Carolina talks of
producing all our own raw materials. Sir, I
ask him, and this intelligent House, upon what
sound principle we can hold on to the duty upon
raw silk ? It is a species of manufacture, to be
sure, now in its infancy in this country, but an
I exceedingly iiupoiUiut one. Upon what ground
i is this duty levied ? When the act of 1846 passed,
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe, Volume 26: Thirty-Second Congress, Second Session, book, 1853; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30783/m1/77/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.