Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/135

 really prevented the price of cotton from falling still more.

The argument which was perhaps most generally accepted, however, came from George McDuffie's theories about the burdens of a tariff tax. This doctrine postulated not merely that, as all admitted, discriminating taxes in general were deterrent to production, but that the tariff particularly affected the cotton-producer; that it subtracted from his profits by compelling him to sell his produce at a reduced price. Its workings amounted to a reduction of the market value of southern products, the argument ran, because in the process of exchange it took more of the southern product to buy a protected article than an unprotected one.

The Patriot replied to this contention. Conceding, it argued, that taxes were in a majority of cases divided between the producer and consumer, the question arose as to who was the producer most affected; McDuffie and his supporters overlooked the producer of the taxed commodity and insisted that the producer of the commodity exchanged for the taxed one bore all of the impost which did not fall on the consumer. In the en-