a broad, comprehensive, national view, and after a due investigation of the facts, to protect the common interests of all branches of American industry, against the unequal competition of foreign labor, or the injurious influence of foreign legislation.

But there are other States in the Union with far heavier loads upon their backs, and, perhaps, a good deal less able to bear them. And though this bill may not give them all they require, it will afford them unquestionably a most welcome relief. As was justly remarked by the President, in his late message, "with States laboring under no extreme pressure from debt, the fund which they would derive from this source would enable them to improve their condition in an eminent degree." "With the debtor States, it would effect relief to a great extent of the citizens from a heavy burden of direct taxation which presses with severity on the laboring classes, and eminently assist in restoring the general prosperity. An immediate advanee would take place in the price of the State securities, and the attitude of the States would become once more, as it ever should be, lofty and erect."

And now let me protest once more against being charged with advocating either a direct or indirect assumption of the State debts. And in aid of that protest, let me summon up a single fact from the most familiar history of the past. I mean the fact that this same measure of distribution was not only proposed, but passed by a majority of both branches of Congress, before one dollar of State debt was contracted. General Jackson's veto arrested it. There can be no pretence, then, that this measure was devised with any reference to State debts. The most that can be said is,and that I fearlessly avow,-that we are impelled by the existence and pressure of those debts, to make another and a stronger effort to carry through and consummate a scheme, which we had long before approved and advocated.

Mr. Chairman, these are the views, briefly and imperfectly expressed, which, in my own mind, outweigh all considerations of the necessities of our own Treasury, and compel me to vote for this bill. The necessities of the Treasury can be supplied from other sources. The nation is not yet in such a beggarly condi

tion as gentlemen would have us think. True, Sir, the revenues of the country have been most extravagantly and wastefully dealt with, for some years past. Our cash on hand has all been expended, and our credit largely drawn upon. But we have inexhaustible resources still left, and a generous and patriotic people to sustain us in putting them in requisition. It will be time enough to discuss this question, however, when the Revenue Bill comes up. I will only say now, in reply to calculations and estimates which have been made on the other side, that, from the best information I can obtain, from those accustomed to examine into such matters in the mercantile community which I have the honor to represent, an additional revenue of many millions of dollars might be raised by a twenty per cent. ad valorem duty on a home valuation of three articles only, which are now on the free list, I mean silks, stuff-goods, and linens.

One idea more, Mr. Chairman, and I will conclude. Sir, I maintain that this, after all, is not a question between distribut ing the proceeds of the public lands among the States, and retaining them honestly and permanently in the Treasury. Gentlemen hold up to the House and to the country a false issue in presenting the question in that form. Have they forgotten that there is such a word as cession in the dictionary, or, as my col league in front of me said the other day, on another subject, are their "lips forbid to name that once familiar word?" I do not mean s-e-s-session. We have heard enough about extra sessions, and extraordinary sessions, and the extraordinary doings of extraordinary sessions. Honorable members all round the House have rung these changes to our heart's content. I mean c-e-scession. Have gentlemen forgotten that General Jackson him. self proposed in his first message to Congress, that "the public lands should cease as soon as practicable to be a source of revenue," and that the proposition was approved and sustained by the great mass of his friends and followers? Have they forgot• ten that a plan for ceding the lands to the States in which they lie, a measure which, if commenced in favor of the existing States, must in all equity be carried out as fast as new States are formed, and which would thus ultimately cover the whole public domain, was devised not a hundred years ago, and not

a thousand miles from South Carolina itself? - A plan for giving up outright one half of the proceeds, and leaving us, as I think, little or no hope of ever seeing any thing of the other half. It does not lie, Mr. Chairman, with gentlemen who have advanced or sustained such schemes as these, to charge the friends of distribution with abstracting the revenues or robbing the exchequer.

I will not detain the Committee by going into any examination of this project of cession. Let me only say, that all that is just and reasonable I shall always be willing, so far as my vote is concerned, to yield to the new States. I rejoice in the rapidity of their advancement, even although, in the scale of national importance, the law of their increase is the law of our decrease. I welcome their Representatives as they come, thronging in augmented numbers, under a new apportionment, to occupy this hall, even though it should be to push some of us from our stools. It gave me a thrill of pleasure and of pride not often experienced, when an honorable Senator from Indiana (Mr. Smith) told me the other day in conversation that, after careful examination, he believed that no one measure which had ever been passed by Congress for the benefit of the new States, could have been carried through without the votes of Massachusetts. I hope they may never ask for those votes in vain. For one, will not cavil about the ten per cent. allowed them in this bill. I do not begrudge them the half million of acres which it proposes to make up to them. I go cheerfully even for the preëmption clause. But I believe the contemplated cession would be a fatal dowry to them, as well as a measure full of injustice to us. Between that, therefore, and distribution, which I consider the real question at stake, I cannot hesitate a moment.

I

26

THE

POLICY OF DISCRIMINATING DUTIES.

A SPEECH IN FAVOR OF MR. FILLMORE'S RESOLUTION, TO REFER THAT PART OF THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE RELATING TO THE TARIFF TO THE COMMITTEE ON MANUFACTURES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 30, 1841.

I HAVE been hoping, from day to day, and from hour to hour, Mr. Speaker, that this debate would be brought to a close, and have more than once repressed a strong disposition to address the House, from a reluctance to render myself in any degree responsible for prolonging a discussion, which seems to me so exceedingly unreasonable and unprofitable; but as the House has exhibited a purpose to allow it to run on without let or limitation, at least until after the holydays, I have determined to deny myself no longer.

I have no intention, however, to go into a general discussion of the policy of a protecting tariff. If I had succeeded in get ting the floor this day last week, when I made three or four unsuccessful efforts to obtain it, I might have been tempted to do so. But my honorable friend and colleague, (Mr. Hudson.) who addressed the House a few days ago, has anticipated me in so many of the views I had intended to present, as to leave me very little material for such a discussion. And he has presented those views, let me add, with so much fulness and so much force, as to afford no apology whatever for repeating them. I can but follow as a gleaner, therefore, in a field which has been most effectively reaped, and can only hope to offer some additional facts and illustrations on points which have already been most ably enforced. And even this, Sir, I should have had much

hesitation at attempting, but for the remarks of the honorable member from Georgia, (Mr. Meriwether,) who has just taken his seat, and who, in the course of a very able speech, has advanced some ideas which ought not to be passed over in silence.

Before proceeding to notice them, however, I desire to make one or two preliminary observations. And in the first place, Sir, I freely acknowledge that, in my judgment, something more of importance has been attached to the precise issue before us than really belongs to it. As a question of parliamentary propriety, indeed, it is by no means unworthy of consideration. This House, in its organization, has adopted the principle of a division of labor. It has distributed its members into twenty or thirty different committees, with reference to the twenty or thirty distinct subjects into which the business of the nation has been arranged. Among these is a Committee of Manufactures. It is in vain for gentlemen to say that there ought to be no such committee. It actually exists. And in reply to a suggestion thrown out the other day, that the Southern members of the House must have been asleep-must have been caught napping - when such a committee was constituted, let me say, that the motion upon which the Committee of Manufactures was separated from the Committee of Commerce in 1819, and received a distinct existence, was made by a Southern member. Mr. Peter Little, a representative from Maryland, was the author of the motion; and, for aught which appears on the journals, it was adopted entirely without opposition. And now I see not, for my life, what subject this committee can fairly claim as its own, if not this very one of discriminating, in the imposition of duties, with reference to our manufacturing interests. What, let me ask, is my honorable colleague, (Mr. Saltonstall,) at the head of that committee, and what are his eight associates to do, in fulfilment of the purposes of their appointment, if not to deal with this precise question? To deny it to them is virtually to proscribe them, and put them in Coventry for the session, so far as their relations as a committee are concerned. Why, Sir, my honorable colleague, I know, comes, emphatically, from a city of peace, (Salem,) and we Northern men are none of us eager to take offence at any thing which is said or done in this House. But