needed for the payment of the public debts and for the defence of the country. It has no right to declare that any undertaking seems useful to it, and that money must be raised and expended for such purpose; for in this way the power and influence of the general government would soon undermine the independence of the several states. The easily invented pretext of the public good, the eulogies bestowed on some dazzling scheme, will not suffice to take money at pleasure out of the pockets of citizens; the more these are let alone, the less they are put into leadingstrings, the more will they succeed in the attainment of useful objects by their own prudence and energy. All raising of the duties beyond the public wants, and for the mere purpose of protecting certain manufactures, is unconstitutional, unjust, and imprudent. It is an obvious absurdity to suppose that labor, capital, professions, trades, prices, are in this great confederation to be restricted, regulated, or promoted in any sensible way by the power of Congress. It is a folly and a falsehood, to call this system of monopoly, this favoring of certain classes or pursuits, the American system; while it violates the doctrine of republican freedom and self-government; transplants hither the errors of Europe, in opposition to the letter and spirit of our Constitution; selfishly or blindly wrongs the whole people, in order to gain the applause of a few; or divides with partial hand the surplus treasure that has been unjustly accumulated, to attract supporters to these false measures.

"Natural manufactures will grow up of themselves; artificial ones are an injury to the people, and at last to the projectors likewise. America must and will acquire by degrees the greatest manufactures of every kind; but every thing has its time, and what is forced and premature is never in season. The absurdity and injuriousness of high rates of duty were long ago demonstrated in the justly venerated Federalist;* and yet, after so many years of instructive experience, we return to what was then scorned and rejected."

As early as the year 1823, the North American Review (p. 186 et seqq.) gave an exposition of the matter as moderate as it is complete: "The laments over the distress and downfall of our commerce are one-sided and exaggerated. These are only temporary crises, arising out of too great boldness; and which must themselves be regarded as a consequence of very great progress. Other evils arise from negligence, ignorance, want of machinery and capital; against which protective duties would prove no efficient safeguard. At least it would be a simpler mode of proceeding, to seek for no specious pretexts, but give money at once to such as have none. Protective duties, on the

• Chapter xxxv.

contrary, drive capital into perverse directions, and are as absurd and injurious for manufactures as for agriculture. As soon as we comprehend that specie is nothing but an article of commerce, we perceive that it is absurd to say that a people buy more than they sell. The balance must always be paid in cotton or silver. Just as absurd is it to speak of the exportation of specie as a misfortune: it may be exceedingly advantageous; and under certain circumstances it may be less advantageous to export cotton or tobacco. What we do not need we send away; and what would become of Mexico, if she exported no silver? In a free trade nothing is imported or exported beyond the natural measure; nothing is imported that we do not need, and nothing exported that we cannot dispense with. None but an idiot can set up the proposition, that specie is always more needed than other things. If we want it, it comes; if we do not, it is better to get something else. Who complains that he has lost a dollar, if he has bought with it a needful pair of shoes? When people who never had any thing turn bankrupt, they cry out that there is a drain of specie; and the rich cry out along with them, in order to secure a monopoly and tax their fellowcitizens by means of protective duties. What if the shipping merchants, who always carry on an extensive business, were to demand a tax on domestic manufactures, in order to be protected against them and be able to import more?

"Every imported article is balanced by an exported one. The Englishman pays American, and the American pays English industry. It is only thus that trade and commerce and a beneficial reciprocity are possible. Some however would senselessly wish to have foreign articles, without using and paying for foreign industry, capital, &c. If I buy less, less is bought of me, and it is foolish to expend more power or money (either at home or abroad), when one can do with less. Otherwise we

should have to propel steamboats by hand, in order to give employment to a greater number of people. A fall in the price of manufactured goods does not by any means invariably indicate a diminution of the profits; and even with protective duties, it is in general only the rich who gain, while the small traders are ruined."

The American tariff (says a sensible English paper, the Globe)—unjust and partial in its principles, like all laws intended to encourage a particular branch of industry, and calculated to favor certain classes or districts of a country, to the injury of the rest-bears its natural fruits; since in the provinces that suffer from it great discontent prevails. The attempt in America to make laws for the protection of manufactures, is, in the peculiar circumstances of that country, of very dubious policy and certainly unjust, &c.

Arguments drawn from science and experience, which were urged in speeches and writings against excessive duties, as well as the most earnest remonstrances made to Congress during many years by the representatives of the southern states, which had seriously suffered from them, were equally in vain; the majority obstinately adhered to their one-sided, erroneous views. At last the citizens of South Carolina lost all patience; they increased their measures of opposition, and in December, 1832, adopted the bold resolution, to declare the custom-laws of the Union null and void, and to renounce obedience to them.

This resolution, which foretold a dissolution of the great and happy federal Union, and indeed partially carried it into effect, naturally created the greatest excitement and the most determined opposition. Such a nullification of the Union, it was said, is illegal, unconstitutional, imprudent, and not to be tolerated. No single state can decide whether or no Congress has unconstitutionally transgressed its rights and privileges. This is the prerogative of the Supreme Court or if it be doubted whether its jurisdiction extends so far, let it be decided by three fourths of the votes of all the states in a convention called for that purpose. When a contract is not fulfilled by one party, the other cannot on that account annul and destroy it, but can only enforce its performance. The grievances of South Carolina are exaggerated, the legal means for their redress have not been made use of, and the results not waited for. The American Union is by no means a mere alliance of independent states; neither does any such grievous oppression exist, as to confer the right of revolution. How if each state were thus to single out some object of dislike (as war, taxes, slavery, &c.), and thereby seek to justify nullification and its secession from the Union? How if, on the other hand, the Supreme Court, or Congress, or the majority of a convention, should wish on that account to nullify and destroy the nullifying state itself, or to alter the Constitution in essential respects? Nowhere in the Constitution is a right given to the single states to correct Congress, in case of transgressing its powers, by annulling the laws which it makes. Nullification is revolution; it breaks up the Union, and leads to war, conquest, and subjection. Never can a single state have more weight than Congress, never can a minority decide against the majority; for every congressional resolution is the voice of the majority of the people in the House of Representatives, and of the majority of the states in the Senate. The loss that would arise from nullification would certainly far exceed any possible gain;-and what would then become of the public lands, fortifications, debts, free

* Knapp's Life of Webster, p. 156. Jackson's official Proclamation. Webster's Speeches, i. 409.

navigation, &c.? Accordingly no state has declared itself in favor of nullification; all regard it as a forbidden revolutionary proceeding.

*

Such were the general complaints respecting the proceedings of South Carolina. They seem, when viewed from the point of positive law, almost incontestible; but they enter into no examination or refutation whatever of the existent grievances and abuses of the tariff. Let us now see how this state viewed the circumstances in question, and sought to justify her measures.* The substance of her declarations both official and unofficial was as follows: According to the letter of the Constitution of 1787, and according to the tenor of the negotiations respecting it, Congress has no right to impose taxes for other purposes than to cover the national expenditure. When therefore it raises money for a monopolizing protection of one class of citizens at the expense of all the rest, its proceedings are unconstitutional, oppressive, and unwise. Ever since 1816, the duties have been raised repeatedly under false pretences; from 33 to 38 per cent. has been laid on woollen goods, and other rates have been increased from 7 to 100 per cent. ; yet this mass of absurdities has been presumptuously and hypocritically called the "American system." South Carolina did good service by stoutly opposing this monstrosity; and though the remedy of nullification may seem a harsh and dangerous one, it was both lawful and necessary, and after ten years of vain endeavor, there was no other left. Besides, it is a palpable and wilful misrepresentation, to assert that the object of the so-called nullifiers was a dissolution of the Union or a total separation from it; they directed their attacks solely against certain unconstitutional decrees, and acknowledged the authority of all laws made according to the Constitution. Congress has no right to alter the Constitution itself; for that purpose other provisions have been made. As soon as these are disregarded, the opposition of the single states is the sole and legal means of upholding the laws, and in fact of preserving the Union itself.

It is a self-evident proposition, that in every kind of voting, political or otherwise, the majority binds the minority. But it is a dangerous and wicked doctrine, that the former can therefore do whatever it pleases, and that all rights may be annihilated by the force of such majority. On the contrary, the minority has also its indefeasible rights; otherwise this mode of decision would be the worst kind of tyranny. The relation of the people to the representatives, of the latter to the senators, of the senators to the president, of Congress to the states, shows that reliance is by no means exclusively placed on an abstract numerical

* Statutes, i. 201. Calhoun's Life, pp. 39-46. Speeches, p. 67.

majority; but, for the protection of liberty, there is given at the same time a proportionally greater weight to certain minorities. Thus both the letter and spirit of the Constitution prescribe to Congress the bounds of its authority, by which no taxation of the kind described and unhappily introduced is allowed. This unconstitutionally creates a privileged class, lowers the price of raw produce, raises that of manufactured goods, and ruins the Southern agricultural states, to enrich those of the North. Suppose the former states were to demand similar premiums and favors for the exportation of their productions; what an outcry would the Northern manufacturers and legislators raise! Out of 100,000 citizens there is hardly one manufacturer. These constitute a class but few in numbers; while the consumers are the great body of the people.

The cheaper a man can supply one want, the more he has left for satisfying the rest; and natural right and natural prudence are not to be violated, to satisfy the selfishness of a few who wish to sell dear. He who cannot carry on a business with free competition, should let it alone; the contrary principle is in fact destructive of trade, it sets the costly and artificial above the natural, and takes much from many in order to bolster up what is unsuitable in itself. All trade is founded on buying where the articles are cheap and abundant; the contrary principle leads to rearing vines in hot-houses, and making sugar out of substances that contain but little of the saccharine matter.

Protective duties prohibit or render difficult the introduction of articles because they are good and cheap, and close the market of the world to favor that of monopolists. To say, that "nothing more is desired than a temporary protection for young manufactures," is mere empty talk. Never did a manufacturer voluntarily give back to his fellow-citizens this compulsory boon, and every passing year renders the return to sound principles more difficult. Never was a manufacture permanently established by protecting duties which would not have succeeded without them.

Every protective duty that impedes importation, impedes exportation also; and he who will not buy, will find at length that he cannot sell. The native manufacturers, like many agriculturists, possess only a local interest; and Congress has no right to show preference and favor to such interest. They cry out to raise the duties; because they know that they contribute to them little or nothing, while prices are raised in a proportionate degree to their own profit. Without this protective tariff, South Carolina would buy 45 per cent. cheaper, and thus would be able to produce and to sell more cheaply. On that account purchasers are now seeking cotton in other countries; and if the South loses this branch of cultivation, she must be utterly impoverished; for she can esta