Page:HOUSE CR Exposition and Protest 1828-12-19.pdf/12

 while on the supposition of equal consumption according to population estimated in federal numbers, their consumption would amount to thirty eight and ours to nineteen millions of dollars. Their consumption would thus exceed their capacity to consume, if judged by the value of their exports, and the profits of their foreign commerce, by eighteen millions; while ours judged the same way would fall short by the same sum. The inquiry which naturally presents itself on this statement is, how is this great change in the relative condition of the parties, to our disadvantage, effected. The committee will proceed to explain this. It obviously grows out of their connection with us. If they were entirely separate, without political or commercial connection, it is manifest, that the consumption of the manufacturing states of foreign articles could not exceed twenty millions, the sum at which the value of their exports, of domestic products, and the profit of their foreign trade is estimated. It would in fact be much less as the profits of foreign navigation and commerce which have been added to their means, depend almost exclusively on the great staples of the south, and would be deducted from their means if no connection existed. On the contrary it is equally manifest, that the means of the south to consume the products of other countries, would not be materially effected, in the state supposed. Let us then inquire, what are the causes growing out of this connexion, by which so great a change is made. They may be comprehended under three, the custom house, the appropriations, and the monopoly of the manufacturers, under the Tariff system, all which are so intimately blended, as to constitute one system, which its advocates, by a perversion of all that is associated with the name, call the American System. The Tariff is the soul of the system. It has already been proved that our contribution through the Custom House to the Treasury of the Union, amounts annually to $16,650,000. which leads to the inquiry, what becomes of the amount of the products of our labour, placed, by the operation of the system at the disposal of Congress. One point is certain, a very small share returns to us, out of whose labor it is extracted. It would require much investigation to state with precision, the proportion of the public revenue disbursed annually in the southern and other states respectively; but the committee feel a thorough conviction on an examination of the annual appropriation acts, that a sum much less than two millions of dollars falls to our share of the disbursements, and that it would be a moderate estimate to place our contribution, above what we receive back, through all the appropriations at fifteen millions; constituting to that great amount an annual, continued and uncompensated draft on the