Mr. Berrien expressed the hope that the suggestion from the other side of the Chamber would be taken and for the reason mentioned. Mr. J. M. Clayton said that the President had a right, if he chose to avail himself of it, to address the Senate. Mr. Clayton then went on to argue that as the will of the people upon this subject could be ascertained in the elections which occur this fall in various States, and as the President desired only to know the will of the people whose representative he was, he could very properly vote to postpone the further consideration of the subject until December next, by which time the information which he desired would have been obtained. The question was then taken upon the motion to postpone, and decided in the negative by the following vote:1 Yeas-Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Berrien, Cameron, Cilley, John M. Clayton, Thomas Clayton, Corwin, Crittenden, Davis, Dayton, Evans, Greene, Huntington, Johnson of Louisiana, Johnson of Maryland, Mangum, Miller, Morehead, Niles, Pearce, Phelps, Simmons, Sturgeon, Upham, Webster, and Woodbridge-27. Nays-Messrs. Allen, Ashley, Atchison, Atherton, Bagby, Benton, Breese, Bright, Calhoun, Cass, Chalmers, Colquitt, Dickinson, Dix, Fairfield, Hannegan, Houston, Jarnagin, Lewis, McDuffie, Pennybacker, Rusk, Semple, Sevier, Speight, Turney, Westcott, and Yulee-28. The bill was then read a third time by its title, no objection being made. The question recurring upon the passage of the bill, Mr. Huntington demanded the yeas and nays, and they were ordered. Mr. Webster rose and said that he regretted that final action on this bill should not have been postponed according to the motion of the honorable Senator from Connecticut, and since he had mentioned that gentleman he took this occasion of rendering to him his thanks for the firmness, the vigor, and the devotion, with which he had supported the interests of his constituents and of the country. But [said Mr. Webster] I rise chiefly to say that a great duty will devolve on both Houses at the commencement of the next session, just the same as if the motion of the honorable Senator had prevailed. Had his motion been adopted this bill would have come up for discussion as soon as we should resemble. And I tell gentlemen on the other side that the President's signature to this bill will not be dry till a determination will be entered into far and wide to bring it under the revision of this very Congress for reconsideration. It ought to be so, and it will be so. The bill goes into effect on the 1st of December next and we meet here on the 5th, and I here tell you that on the very first day of our session a bill will be in the other House to repeal this law. A friend near me [Mr. Evans] says that there will be another bill there before it, and that will be a bill to carry on the Government. [A laugh.] However that may be, a bill will be there to repeal this law, and it ought to be so. It is as impossible as that the sun should go backward and set in the east, as that the people should suffer the principles contained in this bill to prevail. Gentlemen do not know the people. [A laugh on the Democratic side of the Senate.] I say they do not know the people between here and Maine-I speak, of course, of southern gentlemen, and though they may laugh now, they will laugh on the other side of their mouths before next December. They no not know the men on whom this bill is mainly intended to 1 Democrats in italics. operate; they do not know their character, nor their pursuits, nor their politics. So far as my advice may go-and I shall address it, of course, to my own people-they will be united in calling on this very Congress to reverse its decision. There are people in the country who think they have been deceived, and they say that they have been deceived once is the fault of others; if they are deceived a second time it will be their own. A great portion of the members of the popular branch of the legislature are to be elected before December. Gentlemen who have voted for this bill will go home, and there they will learn the sentiments of the people. These elections will be pending and they will be interrogated by the people. Political professions will then be examined and will be judged of by their appraisers, ad valorem. [A laugh.] What has been the history of this measure in Congress? The other House, after a sitting of some seven months, sent the bill to us; it was referred to no committee-it was accompanied with no report, but pressed through the body in a manner never known before in this Senate; a question of this magnitude, involving as it does an infinite investigation of details, and yet not one of these details investigated by anybody-not one. Can gentlemen believe that the great mass of the people will not be able to see that the measure has been brought about by certain political disappointments and extraordinary proceedings in the legislature? Most certainly they will. They can not but see and feel in a matter so nearly concerning them. Public sentiment is excited on this subject. I venture to say that on two points public opinion is settled: First, as to the utter folly of the ad valorem principle in the imposition of duties and I do not believe that there are at this moment five gentlemen in the Senate who, if left to their own choice, would prefer that mode, nor indeed can I persuade myself that there is a man in the whole Executive Government who, if the bill were now to come for the first time from the Treasury, would have it in its present form. All the industry of the land is against it; the manufacturers are against it, the importers are against it, the shipowners are against it no man cries, God save it; it is against the sentiment of the land. The great principle of a just discrimination in favor of such articles as the general interest requires, is the principle which commands the approbation of the American people. I here tell, gentlemen, we shall have henceforward no more ad valorem tariffs. We never shall go on the principle of a horizontal tariff. This bill can not stand. It will not stand. It is a house built upon the sand, and no intelligent man will think himself safe beneath its roof; it will fall on him and crush him. I have never said that the tariff of 1842 might not be well amended, but this I say that the principles of that law are grounded in all true political science, on all sound legislation, and they are so imbued in the minds of the people that nothing can get them out. They will have specific duties, and you can not help it. You might as well resist the course of an avalanche. Having said this, I will add nothing of an exciting or offensive kind. I give my advise. I say that public opinion will express itself in a way you can not withstand. If there shall be a public acquiescence in the system broached by this bill be it so. Then we shall fall down upon another principle in regard to our revenue. But if in the coming elections the public voice shall be loud and distinct, so that Members will be obliged to hear and obey it, they will not defer to another Con gress the correction of our errors, but they will bring this bill before those who made it, and that on the very first day that we shall again convene. Mr. Davis said that he had hoped that the proposition brought forward by the Senator would have prevailed, and he took this occasion to say that this was not a mere question of revenue, it was not a question of ad valorems, but greater than either. Gentlemen rose here and argued as if taxes were assessed for the benefit of particular classes. He need not say how unjust and how unfair this was. Government assessed the amount of revenue because its exigencies demanded it. They assessed such an amount of duties as would accomplish this object, and nothing more. All the question between the two sides of this Chamber was the question how this amount should be raised, and that was a question which the people would investigate. They would bring the great doctrines held on both sides to the test. They would examine the doctrines of the advocates of this bill, and they would bring the result of that examination to the polls. Congress had hitherto adopted the principle of discriminating in favor of American industry, but now they had changed that policy, and in this bill discriminated against our own industry and in favor of that of other countries. Mr. Davis said this because this policy marked every feature of this bill. The Secretary himself told Congress that his principle was to increase our imports to the amount of from ten to twenty-five millions of dollars. The laborers of this country were not so blind that they could not see that their products were displaced by those of foreign countries, which were brought in as if on purpose to throw them out of employ. That was the question they would make with the authors and the supporters of this bill, and that was the question they would carry to the polls. The question with them respecting their candidate would be, Is he for discriminating in favor or against American industry? The argument here was in favor of increasing importations. Gentlemen might as well say at once and in so many words that they went for encouraging the labor of foreign countries against that of our own. Let that question go to the polls, and those who went for free-trade doctrines would soon find who were right. [Loud cries for the question.] Mr. Huntington said he would detain the Senate but a moment. [Cries of "Question! Question!"] He did not rise to delay action on this bill he knew it was determined on and must take place-but to unite with his honorable colleague [Mr. Niles] in entering here the solemn protest of the Commonwealth they unitedly represented against this bill, its objects and its effects, in breaking down the prosperity of the people of their State. Mr. Huntington said he differed from his colleague on political questions, but on this they united in speaking the wishes of their people. And he here told gentlemen that those people would, in every constitutional and legal way, stand up in defense of their rights, and would apply the remedy for their wrongs. He should go home and tell his people what was said here, and show them that this was a bill which went to cut down their labor for the benefit of laborers on the other side of the water. Mr. Huntington said that he had lived in a State which did not abound in rich capitalists; the body of those he represented consisted of farmers, mechanics, laborers, and a few merchants, and they were all arrayed in the deepest and most determined hostility to this measure and the whole system on which it was founded. They were the men who followed the plow, who wielded the hammer, who wrought at the anvil and in the workshop. From these men, and such as these, this bill took their food, their clothing, their comforts, and the means of educating their children. In the name of that people who had been forced to enter into many of these branches of industry by the action of Congress itself, and who were now to be thrown upon the world without bread or the means of obtaining it, he united with his colleague in entering a solemn protest against this destructive measure. The bill was inevitably destined to be repealed, but in the meanwhile many would be reduced by it to beggary and want. Mr. Simmons said that this bill, which was about to plunge the country into a difficulty, take the daily bread from the orphan, and from millions whose employment would be swept away, was apparently to be forced upon the people by a single vote; yes, one vote would save all this distress-all this agony? Who, then, were the men that would come out on the side of their country? The question upon the passage of the bill was then taken by yeas and nays, and decided in the affirmative, by the following vote: 1 Yeas-Messrs. Allen, Ashley, Atchison, Atherton, Bagby, Benton, Breese, Bright, Calhoun, Cass, Chalmers, Colquitt, Dickinson, Dix, Fairfield, Hannegan, Houston, Jarnagin, Lewis, McDuffie, Pennybacker, Rusk, Semple, Sevier, Speight, Turney, Westcott, and Yulee-23. Nays-Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Berrien, Cameron, Cilley, John M. Clayton, Thomas Clayton, Corwin, Crittenden, Davis, Dayton, Evans, Greene, Huntington, Johnson of Louisiana, Johnson of Maryland, Mangum, Miller, Morehead, Niles, Pearce, Phelps, Simmons, Sturgeon, Upham, Webster, and Woodbridge-47. So the bill was passed. The title of the bill was then read and passed as follows, viz: "A bill to reduce the duties on imports, and for other purposes." The bill was then directed to be sent to the House of Representatives; and, On motion of Mr. Speight, The Senate adjourned. WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1846. THE TARIFF BILL. A message was received from the House of Representatives, informing the Senate that the House had agreed to the Senate's amendment of the tariff bill. FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1846. THE TARIFF BILL. The Speaker resumed the chair informally to receive a message from the President of the United States, by the hands of J. K. Walker, Esq., his private secretary, informing the House that the President had approved and signed certain bills, and, among others, the bill to reduce the duty on imports and for other purposes. 1 Democrats in italics. ADDRESS OF THE HON. WILLIAM H. HAYWOOD, JR. To the People of North Carolina: I have never appeared before the public, by myself or otherwise, to write down an accusation against me, but have hitherto chosen to bear unjust rebuke in silence, and rely upon time and my manner of life to consign to oblivion the whisperings of the envious and the calumnies of the malignant. I do not affect to conceal that a departure from this rule gives me much pain; and I am persuaded that if many of my friends did not think that it is a duty I owe to the people not to remain silent under the recent censure of frenzied partisans, I should leave it as far as concerns me, to my own character and the self-denying act which has provoked it, to vindicate the patriotism and purity of my motives; reposing confidently upon the discernment and judgment of an intelligent public, in view of the simple facts as they occurred; and not doubting that, so soon as the occasion has passed by, and there was no longer a necessity for overawing others, who it might have been supposed were more timid in their purpose, and no chance to deceive the people at North Carolina. elections, by unscrupulous libels against me, my assailants would cease from their "dirty work," and bad men, who measure the motives of the virtuous by a standard of morals which vice has erected in their own bosoms, would go hunting after some fresh victim to gratify their ignoble malice. But I come before you at this time to speak of myself, not of others, and to defend my own faithfulness, not to expose their designs; and I think myself happy that I have the honest people of North Carolina to judge my cause. I invoke no sympathy, I ask no compassion, and I thank God I need them not. But, with the proud consciousness of one who has dared to do his duty as a servant of the Republic, amidst dangers and trials, such as, I trust, are not to grow common in our Government, I stand before you to lay claim to the confidence, respect, and approbation of all good men, more especially of those belonging to the Democratic Party. I feel and know this day, and I will prove even to my enemies, that in my station as a Senator, and retiring from it, I incurred no guilt, I deceived no one, I betrayed no party, I made no sacrifice of your interests, and no surrender of your rights-none at all, directly or indirectly. And they who have charged the contrary, with all who from any motive, personal or political, have given to it their countenance, did "bear false witness." It is true that on the 25th of July, a few moments before the vote was expected to have been taken on the new tariff bill of 1846 (improperly called "McKay's bill") I resigned my seat as a Senator in Congress into the hands of North Carolina, to whom it belonged, believing that it was my duty to do it sooner than cast my vote against my conscience for a law that I could not approve, and knowing that it was my perfect right to do it, and that I would be but exercising that right in precise accordance with the last written doctrine of the legislature and of the party who elected me. In this only have I 404 |