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 376 The Tariff question. [i824-7 increase in the tariff would therefore be, in effect, a tribute paid by the South to the North. Despite these arguments the Bill passed ; and protection as a policy was fastened on the United States. For a while all went well under the new tariff of 1824. Money hitherto invested in ships and foreign commerce began to be withdrawn to erect cotton-mills and woollen mills, and to build villages composed entirely of the homes of operators. But conditions not foreseen soon laid prostrate the wool and woollen cloth industries. Competition produced by the increase of mills at home and large imports from abroad brought down prices. The reduction of the duty in Great Britain on imported wool from a shilling to a penny a pound enabled her manufacturers to sell more cheaply than ever ; the evasion of the ad valorem duty on woollen cloth in American ports by false valuations enabled British exporters to break down the tariff; the sales of imported goods in original packages at auction secured a quick market; and by 1826 woollen manufactures were prostrate. Massachusetts was then the chief seat of the woollen industry. In the autumn of 1826 manufacturers of woollens from all parts of New England assembled at Boston, and framed a memorial which was sent to each manufacturer of woollen goods in the United States. The remedy, they declared, was such an increase in the tariff as would secure protec- tion. To obtain this, increase meetings must be held, committees of correspondence appointed, members of Congress interviewed, and dele- gates sent to Washington to urge the passage of a new Tariff Act. These things were done ; and in January, 1827, a Bill granting all that was asked passed the House, but was tabled in the Senate by the casting vote of Calhoun. In the planting States the defeat of the Bill was hailed with delight. The planters declared that if the proposed tariff were needed to produce revenue they would willingly pay the duties, heavy as they might be. But they argued that there was no need of more revenue. The Federal treasury was full, and the national debt rapidly decreasing. The real purpose of the proposed tariff was to force capital into channels in which it could not naturally flow, and to produce a ruinous change in the pursuits of the Southern people. Of the 600,000 bales of cotton sold annually, two-thirds were sent to foreign countries, which sent in return almost every manufactured article used in the South. The duties contemplated would therefore fall with especial severity on the South, and were in the nature of a tax on the industry of one part of the country for the benefit of the manufactures of another. As the autumn of 1827 wore away, these sentiments found expression in resolutions and memorials of public meetings. Senator Hayne of South Carolina told the Chamber of Commerce of Charleston that the rich manufacturers of the North originated the Bill, in order that they might secure a i^onopoly of the home market and enhance their profits ;