SPEECH OF HON. JOHN H. MITCHELL. The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill (H. R. 9416) to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, and for other purposes Mr. MITCHELL said: Mr. PRESIDENT: The purpose of the pending bill is to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, and thus, while regulating trade with foreign nations, and providing enough but no more than the necessary amount of revenue to meet the reasonable demands of the Government, to afford more equal and adequate protection to American industries and American labor. In the consideration of this measure we are proceeding under grants of power contained in those clauses of the Constitution which provide that the Congress shall have power, among other things, first, to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;" and, secondly, "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." In view of one of the vital causes leading up to the Revolution-that of the contest for industrial freedom-and which stands prominent, historically, side by side with that other controlling influence, political liberty, in connection with the great events of those eventful years into which were crowded the Revolutionary war and the establishment of our Government, and the influence it exerted on the formation of the Constitution and on the consequent interpretation placed on that instrument by the fathers without a single exception for over a quarter of a century, it seems marvelous and to many wholly incomprehensible that there should at the present day be found any considerable number of prominent, intelligent statesmen in this country, much less a great party of intelligent voters who should advocate the doctrine of free trade, or, what is its equivalent, a tariff for revenue only, and thus announce and express their disbelief, not alone in the policy were the power undisputed, but also in the constitutional power of Congress to impose impost duties upon foreign products imported into this country, as a means of protection to home industries and home labor, as contradistinguished from that policy which gives mere incidental protection by the levying of only such customs duties as may be necessary for the purposes of revenue only, and in such manner as to wholly ignore every consideration of protection to either industrial enterprises or manual labor. But yet such is the fact, and it was upon this great issue joined be tween the two great political parties that the Presidential contest of 1888 was "fought to a finish" and won by the Republican party. The pledges made to the people in that contest by the Republican party, not only in its national platform but on every stump throughout the length and breadth of the land, are in the consideration of the pending bill in process of faithful redemption. Already one branch of the national Congress, whose constitutional duty it is to speak first on all questions involving the raising of revenue, has spoken. That action having been under careful review and revision by the proper organ of the Senate-the Committee on Finance-has been submitted by that committee for the consideration of the Senate with certain amendments, not one of which, however, it is believed controverts the grand central idea which is fundamental, pivotal, and controlling in the House bill, that of protection to American industries and American labor; but all of which relate rather to matters of arrangement and detail, and in some instances to the rates that should, all interests being considered, be applied in certain cases arising from differences in judgment among those all of whom agree as to the general policy to be enforced. That there should be differences of opinion among leaders of the same great political party in reference to what is a proper application of a great principle, that of a just and adequate protection to our various industries in so complicated a matter as the levying of imposts upon a great variety of articles of foreign importation, is not surprising. in Indeed, it is most astonishing that all should finally be able, as will the representatives of the Republican party of the two Houses of Congress be able, as it is to be hoped and believed, at no distant day, the redemption of their solemn pledges to the people, to meet on common ground and submit to the Executive a bill which, while it will reduce the annual revenues of the Government from $25,000,000 to $35,000,000, perhaps much more, will, in the rearrangement of its various schedules, be more in accordance with equal and exact justice to all interests-those of the producer and consumer-than is the existing law. The great difficulties involved in arriving at correct legislation on this subject are truly indicated by the President in his annual message, wherein, after recommending a revision of our tariff law, both in its administrative features and in the schedules, he said: The preparation of a new schedule of customs duties is a matter of great delicacy because of its direct effect upon the business of the country, and of great difficulty by reason of the wide divergence of opinion as to the objects that may properly be promoted by such legislation. Some disturbance of business may perhaps result from the consideration of this subject by Congress, but this temporary ill effect will be reduced to the minimum by prompt action and by the assurance which the country already enjoys that any necessary changes will be so made as not to impair the just and reasonable protection of our home industries. The inequalities of the law should be adjusted, but the protective principle should be maintained and fairly applied to the products of our farms as well as of our shops. These duties necessarily have relation to other things besides the public revenues. We can not limit their effects by fixing our eyes on the public Treasury alone. They have a direct relation to home production, to work, to wages, and to the commercial independence of our country, and the wise and patriotic legislator should enlarge the field of his vision to include all of these. The necessary reduction in our public revenues can, I am sure, be made without making the smaller burden more onerous than the larger by reason of the disabilities and the limitations which the process of reduction puts upon both capital and labor. The free-list can very safely be extended by placing thereon articles that do not offer injurious competition to such domestic products as our home labor can supply. THE POWER AND DUTY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION TO PROTECT AMERICAN IN- But before proceeding to the consideration of any of the provisions of the pending bill it may not be inappropriate, in view of the contention of the Democratic party, to refer to some questions, both elementary and fundamental, and consider them in connection with our constitutional power and duty as well as bearing upon the questions of customs taxation. It is of vast importance that we should inquire as to who is right and who wrong in the interpretation placed upon the terms of the Constitution in so far as they relate to the powers of Congress in regulating commerce with foreign nations and in the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. It is upon the correct interpretation of these clauses that the position of the one or the other of the two great political parties of this country must find an immutable and impregnable foundation, while to that of the other it will prove as insecure and as perishable as a foundation of melting snows. It is insisted by our Democratic brethren that under these clauses there is only a grant of power to Congress to levy such customs taxes upon foreign imports as may be necessary for the purposes of revenue, and that there is no power given, either direct or implied, to impose duties upon foreign importations as a means and for the purpose of encouraging the establishment of a diversity of home industries and of affording protection to these, and to thus stimulate and advance the interests of American production and American labor; while upon the contrary the Republican party hold to the very reverse of this-that is, they believe that clearly embraced within, if not, indeed, the primary purpose and power involved in the constitutional clauses referred to, as distinct and substantive items in the enumerated powers of the instrument, are the right, and, indeed, the duty, upon the part of Congress to encourage by the imposition of duties, prohibitions, and restrictions on foreign imports, the American productions of farm, and mine, and shop, as also the interests of American labor. To arrive at a correct interpretation of these constitutional provisions_they_should be read and studied, not alone in the light of the words and phrases themselves, considered in connection with other portions of the instrument, but in the broad and more comprehensive light of the causes which led the colonies first to legislative protest and resistance against what they deemed the unjust aggressions of the mother country, and then to open rebellion, the war of the Revolution, the creation of the Confederacy, and finally the establishment of the national Union, with the Constitution as its fundamental charter, and the interpretation placed on that instrument through more than a quarter of a century subsequent to its establishment by the very statesmen who participated in its formation. Viewed in the light of the history of those historic times, can there be any doubt as to the correctness of the interpretation of those clauses of the Constitution now placed upon them by the adherents of the policy of protection; and, moreover, is not such a construction one vital to the present and continued welfare and prosperity of the Republic? A glance at the history of the colonies reveals the important fact that it was the infringement by England on the industrial independence of the people of the American colonies, quite as much as interference with their political rights, which led first to colonial legislative protest, then to revolution, and then to independence. 1 No sooner had the people of the North American provinces commenced the manufacturing of cloth in this country, which was initiated about the year 1710, until England protested long and loud and a resolution was unanimously adopted by the English House of Commons declaring that the erection of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence on Great Britain. Menry C. Carey, in his work (The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign, page 95), after referring to this fact, says: Soon afterward complaints were made to Parliament that the colonists were establishing manufactories for themselves, and the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade to report on the subject, which was done at great length. In 1732 the exportation of hats from province to province was prohibited, and the number of apprentices to be taken by hatters was limited. In 1750 the erection of any mill or other engine for splitting or rolling iron was prohibited; but pigiron was allowed to be imported into England duty free, that it might be there manufactured and sent back again. At a later period Lord Chatham declared that he would not permit the colonists to make even a hobnail for themselves; and his views were then and subsequently carried into effect by the absolute prohibition, in 1765, of the export of artisans; in 1781 of woolen machinery; in 1782 of cotton machinery and artificers in cotton; in 1785 of iron and steel making machinery and workmen in those departments of trade; and in 1799 by the prohibition of the export of colliers, lest other countries should acquire the art of mining coal. So studiously and yet so remorselessly did these industrial encroachments proceed that Thomas Jefferson, over two years before he penned the Declaration that rendered his name immortal, wrote as follows: That to heighten still the idea of parliamentary justice, and to show with what moderation they are likely to exercise power where themselves are to feel no part of its weight, we take leave to mention to His Majesty certain other acts of the British Parliament by which we were prohibited from manufacturing for our own use the articles we raise on our own lands with our own labor. By an act passed in the fifth year of the reign of his late Majesty, King George II, an American subject is forbidden to make a hat for himself of the fur which he has taken, perhaps, on his own soil-an instance of despotism to which no parallel can be produced in the most arbitrary ages of British history. By one other act, passed in the twenty-third year of the same reign, the iron which we make we are forbidden to manufacture; and heavy as that article is, and necessary in every branch of husbandry, besides commission and insurance, we are to pay freight for it to Great Britain, and freight for it back again, for the purpose of supporting, not men, but machines, in the island of Great Britain. Does any one believe that if Thomas Jefferson were alive to-day, entertaining, as he did, such views in reference to the right and duty of a separate people, whether colonial or independent, to resist the industrial encroachments of a foreign country, and to encourage and protect by appropriate legislation the industries and labor of the people of his own country, he would indorse the views of those who to-day hold in effect that so far from protecting these against foreign importations, we should remove every restriction to foreign trade, swing open the gates of our ports to the ships of the world, and offer a free market to the cheap machine and pauper-produced products, and servile labor of all the nations of the earth? But further as to the trade and encroachments of England against her own colonial people and the causes leading up to the Revolution and which shed light on the clauses of the Constitution under interpretation, these are clearly indicated in the various acts of protest and resolutions of the Colonial Congress during the years 1774-76, both inclusive. These will be found collated in the first volume of Elliott's Debates on the Federal Constitution, in a preliminary paper entitled "Gradual Approaches to Independence," and are as follows: On the 19th of September, 1774, it was unanimously resolved that the Congress request the merchants and others in the several colonies not to send to |