Page:HOUSE CR Exposition and Protest 1828-12-19.pdf/5

 ment to manufactures, whenever imposed on articles, which may be manufactured in our own country. In this incidental manner Congress has the power of encouraging manufactures; and the committee readily concede, that in the passage of an impost bill, that body may, in modifying the details, so arrange the provisions of the bill, as far as it may be done consistently with its proper object, as to aid manufactures. To this extent Congress may constitutionally go, and has gone from the commencement of the government, which will fully explain the precedents cited from the early stages of its operation. Beyond this, they never advanced until the commencement of the present system, the inequality and oppression of which, your committee will next proceed to consider.

The committee feel, on entering upon this branch of the subject, the painful character of the duty they must perform. They would desire never to speak of our country, as far as the action of the general government is concerned, but as one great whole, having a common interest, which all its parts ought zealously to promote. Previously to the adoption of the Tariff system, such was the unanimous feeling of this state; but in speaking of its operation it will be impossible to avoid the discussion of sectional interest, and the use of sectional language. On its authors however, and not on us, who are compelled to adopt this course in self-defence by the injustice and oppression of their measures—be the censure. So partial are the effects of the system, that its burdens are exclusively on one side and its benefits on the other. It imposes on the agricultural interest of the South, including the South West, and that portion of our commerce and navigation engaged in foreign trade, the burden, not only of sustaining the system itself, but that also of sustaining government. In stating the ease thus strongly, it is not the intention of the committee to exaggerate. If exaggeration were not unworthy of the gravity of the subject, the reality is such as to render it unnecessary.

That the manufacturing states, even in their own opinions bear no share of the burden of the Tariff in reality—we may infer with the greatest certainty from their own conduct. The fact, that they incessantly demand an increase of duties, and consider every addition as a blessing, and a failure to obtain one, a curse, is the strongest confession, that whatever burden it imposes, in reality falls, not on them, but on others. Men ask not for burdens, but for benefits. The tax paid by the duty on imports by which, with the exception of the receipts from the sale of the public lands, the government is wholly supported, and which, in its gross amount, is annually equal to about $23,000,000, is then in truth no tax on them. Whatever por-