Page:State Papers on Nullification.djvu/19

 5 of twenty-four Sovereign and Independent States, — occupying a territory upwards of 2000 miles in extent, — embracing every variety of soil, climate, and productions, — inhabited by a people whose institutions and interests are in many respects diametri- cally opposed to each other, — with habits and pursuits infinitely diversified, — and in the great Southern section of the Union, rendered by local circumstances altogether incapable of change. Under such circumstances, a system, which under a consolidated Government would be merely impolitic, and so far, an act of injustice to the whole community, becomes in this country a scheme of the most intolerable oppression, because it may be, and has in fact been, so adjusted as to operate exclusively to the benefit of a particular interest, and of particular sections of country, rendering in effect the industry of one portion of the confederacy tributary to the rest. The laws have accordingly been so framed as to give a direct pecuniary interest to a sec- tional majority, in maintaining a grand system, by which taxes are in effect imposed upon the few, for the benefit of the many; — and imposed too, by a system of indirect taxation, so artfully contrived, as to escape the vigilance of the common eye, and masked under such ingenious devices as to make it extremely difficult to expose their true character. Thus under the pretext of imposing duties for the payment of the public debt, and pro- viding for the common defence and general welfare, (powers expressly conferred on the Federal Government by the Consti- tution,) acts are passed containing provisions designed exclu- sively and avowedly for the purpose of securing to the American Manufacturers, a monopoly in our own markets, to the great and manifest prejudice of those who furnish the agricultural produc- tions which are exchanged in foreign markets for the very arti- cles which it is the avowed object of these laws to exclude. It so happens, that six of the Southern States, whose industry is almost exclusively agricultural, though embracing a population equal to only one third part of the whole Union, actually pro- duce for exportation near 40,000,000 annually, being about two- thirds of the whole domestic exports of the United States. As it is their interest, so it is, unquestionably, their right, to carry these fruits of their own honest industry, to the best market, without any molestation, hindrance, or restraint, whatsoever, and