Читать книгу Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments - Various - Страница 23

Table of Contents

Tariff controversy continued—Mr. Hayne—Mr. Carter—Mr. Govan—Mr. Martindale—Mr. Buchanan—Sugar Planters invoked to aid Free Trade—The West also invoked—Its pecuniary embarrassments for want of markets—Henry Baldwin—Remarks on the views of the parties—State of the world—Dread of the Protective policy by the Planters—Their schemes to avert its consequences, and promote Free Trade.

To understand the sentiments of the South, on the Protective Policy, as expressed by its statesmen, we must again quote from the Congressional Debates of 1824:

Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "But how, I would seriously ask, is it possible for the home market to supply the place of the foreign market, for our cotton? We supply Great Britain with the raw material, out of which she furnishes the Continent of Europe, nay, the whole world, with cotton goods. Now, suppose our manufactories could make every yard of cloth we consume, that would furnish a home market for no more than 20,000,000 lbs. out of the 180,000,000 lbs. of cotton now shipped to Great Britain; leaving on our hands 160,000,000 lbs., equal to two-thirds of our whole produce..... Considering this scheme of promoting certain employments, at the expense of others, as unequal, oppressive, and unjust—viewing prohibition as the means, and the destruction of all foreign commerce as the end of this policy—I take this occasion to declare, that we shall feel ourselves, justified in embracing the very first opportunity of repealing all such laws as may be passed for the promotion of these objects."

Mr. Carter, of South Carolina, said: "Another danger to which the present measure would expose this country, and one in which the Southern States have a deep and vital interest, would be the risk we incur, by this system of exclusion, of driving Great Britain to countervailing measures, and inducing all other countries, with whom the United States have any considerable trading connections, to resort to measures of retaliation. There are countries possessing vast capacities for the production of rice, of cotton, and of tobacco, to which England might resort to supply herself. She might apply herself to Brazil, Bengal, and Egypt, for her cotton; to South America, as well as to her colonies, for her tobacco; and to China and Turkey for her rice."

Mr. Govan, of South Carolina, said: "The effect of this measure on the cotton, rice, and tobacco-growing States, will be pernicious in the extreme:—it will exclude them from those markets where they depended almost entirely for a sale of those articles, and force Great Britain to encourage the cottons, (Brazil, Rio Janeiro, and Buenos Ayres,) which, in a short time, can be brought in competition with us. Nothing but the consumption of British goods in this country, received in exchange, can support a command of the cotton market to the Southern planter. It is one thing very certain, she will not come here with her gold and silver to trade with us. And should Great Britain, pursuing the principles of her reciprocal duty act, of last June, lay three or four cents on our cotton, where would, I ask, be our surplus of cotton? It is well known that the United States can not manufacture one-fourth of the cotton that is in it; and should we, by our imprudent legislative enactments, in pursuing to such an extent this restrictive system, force Great Britain to shut her ports against us, it will paralyze the whole trade of the Southern country. This export trade, which composes five-sixths of the export trade of the United States, will be swept entirely from the ocean, and leave but a melancholy wreck behind."

It is necessary, also, to add a few additional extracts, from the speeches of Northern statesmen, during this discussion.

Mr. Martindale, of New York, said: "Does not the agriculture of the country languish, and the laborer stand still, because, beyond the supply of food for his own family, his produce perishes on his hands, or his fields lie waste and fallow; and this because his accustomed market is closed against him? It does, sir..... A twenty years' war in Europe, which drew into its vortex all its various nations, made our merchants the carriers of a large portion of the world, and our farmers the feeders of immense belligerent armies. An unexampled activity and increase in our commerce followed—our agriculture extended itself, grew and nourished. An unprecedented demand gave the farmer an extraordinary price for his produce..... Imports kept pace with exports, and consumption with both..... Peace came into Europe, and shut out our exports, and found us in war with England, which almost cut off our imports..... Now we felt how comfortable it was to have plenty of food, but no clothing..... Now we felt the imperfect organization of our system. Now we saw the imperfect distribution and classification of labor..... Here is the explanation of our opposite views. It is employment, after all, that we are all in search of. It is a market for our labor and our produce, which we all want, and all contend for. 'Buy foreign goods, that we may import,' say the merchants: it will make a market for importations, and find employment for our ships. Buy English manufactures, say the cotton planters; England will take our cotton in exchange. Thus the merchant and the cotton planter fully appreciate the value of a market when they find their own encroached upon. The farmer and manufacturer claim to participate in the benefits of a market for their labor and produce; and hence this protracted debate and struggle of contending interests. It is a contest for a market between the cotton-grower and the merchant on the one side, and the farmer and the manufacturer on the other. That the manufacturer would furnish this market to the farmer, admits no doubt. The farmer should reciprocate the favor; and government is now called upon to render this market accessible to foreign fabrics for the mutual benefit of both..... This, then, is the remedy we propose, sir, for the evils which we suffer. Place the mechanic by the side of the farmer, that the manufacturer who makes our cloth, should make it from our farmers' wool, flax, hemp, etc., and be fed by our farmers' provisions. Draw forth our iron from our own mountains, and we shall not drain our country in the purchase of the foreign..... We propose, sir, to supply our own wants from our own resources, by the means which God and Nature have placed in our hands..... But here is a question of sectional interest, which elicits unfriendly feelings and determined hostility to the bill..... The cotton, rice, tobacco, and indigo-growers of the Southern States, claim to be deeply affected and injured by this system..... Let us inquire if the Southern planter does not demand what, in fact, he denies to others. And now, what does he request? That the North and West should buy—what? Not their cotton, tobacco, etc., for that we do already, to the utmost of our ability to consume, or pay, or vend to others; and that is to an immense amount, greatly exceeding what they purchase of us. But they insist that we should buy English wool, wrought into cloth, that they may pay for it with their cotton; that we should buy Russia iron, that they may sell their cotton; that we should buy Holland gin and linen, that they may sell their tobacco. In fine, that we should not grow wool, and dig and smelt the iron of the country; for, if we did, they could not sell their cotton." (On another occasion, he said:) "Gentlemen say they will oppose every part of the bill. They will, therefore, move to strike out every part of it. And, on every such motion, we shall hear repeated, as we have done already, the same objections: that it will ruin trade and commerce; that it will destroy the revenue, and prostrate the navy; that it will enhance the prices of articles of the first necessity, and thus be taxing the poor; and that it will destroy the cotton market, and stop the future growth of cotton."

Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, said: "No nation can be perfectly independent which depends upon foreign countries for its supply of iron. It is an article equally necessary in peace and in war. Without a plentiful supply of it, we cannot provide for the common defense. Can we so soon have forgotten the lesson which experience taught us during the late war with Great Britain? Our foreign supply was then cut off, and we could not manufacture in sufficient quantities for the increased domestic demand. The price of the article became extravagant, and both the Government and the agriculturist were compelled to pay double the sum for which they might have purchased it, had its manufacture, before that period, been encouraged by proper protecting duties."

Sugar cane, at that period, had become an article of culture in Louisiana, and efforts were made to persuade her planters into the adoption of the Free Trade system. It was urged that they could more effectually resist foreign competition, and extend their business, by a cheap supply of food, than by protective duties. But the Louisianians were too wise not to know, that though they would certainly obtain cheap provisions by the destruction of Northern manufactures, still, this would not enable them to compete with the cheaper labor supplied by the slave trade to the Cubans.

The West, for many years, gave its undivided support to the manufacturing interests, thereby obtaining a heavy duty on hemp, wool, and foreign distilled spirits: thus securing encouragement to its hemp and wool-growers, and the monopoly of the home market for its whisky. The distiller and the manufacturer, under this system, were equally ranked as public benefactors, as each increased the consumption of the surplus products of the farmer. The grain of the West could find no remunerative market, except as fed to domestic animals for droving East and South, or distilled into whisky which would bear transportation. Take a fact in proof of this assertion. Hon. Henry Baldwin, of Pittsburgh, at a public dinner given him by the friends of General Jackson, in Cincinnati, May, 1828, in referring to the want of markets, for the farmers of the West, said, "He was certain, the aggregate of their agricultural produce, finding a market in Europe, would not pay for the pins and needles they imported."

The markets in the Southwest, now so important, were then quite limited. As the protective system, coupled with the contemplated internal improvements, if successfully accomplished, would inevitably tend to enhance the price of agricultural products; while the free trade and anti-internal improvement policy, would as certainly reduce their value; the two systems were long considered so antagonistic, that the success of the one must sound the knell of the other. Indeed, so fully was Ohio impressed with the necessity of promoting manufactures, that all capital thus employed, was for many years entirely exempt from taxation.

It was in vain that the friends of protection appealed to the fact, that the duties levied on foreign goods did not necessarily enhance their cost to the consumer; that the competition among home manufacturers, and between them and foreigners, had greatly reduced the price of nearly every article properly protected; that foreign manufacturers always had, and always would advance their prices according to our dependence upon them; that domestic competition was the only safety the country had against foreign imposition; that it was necessary we should become our own manufacturers, in a fair degree, to render ourselves independent of other nations in times of war, as well as to guard against the vacillations in foreign legislation; that the South would be vastly the gainer by having the market for its products at its own doors, to avoid the cost of their transit across the Atlantic; that, in the event of the repression or want of proper extension of our manufactures, by the adoption of the free trade system, the imports of foreign goods, to meet the public wants, would soon exceed the ability of the people to pay, and, inevitably, involve the country in bankruptcy.

Southern politicians remained inflexible, and refused to accept any policy except free trade, to the utter abandonment of the principle of protection. Whether they were jealous of the greater prosperity of the North, and desirous to cripple its energies, or whether they were truly fearful of bankrupting the South, we shall not wait to inquire. Justice demands, however, that we should state that the South was suffering from the stagnation in the cotton trade existing throughout Europe. The planters had been unused to the low prices, for that staple, they were compelled to accept. They had no prospect of an adequate home market for many years to come, and there were indications that they might lose the one they already possessed. The West Indies was still slave territory, and attempting to recover its early position in the English market. This it had to do, or be forced into emancipation. The powerful Viceroy of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, was endeavoring to compel his subjects to grow cotton on an enlarged scale. The newly organized South American republics were assuming an aspect of commercial consequence, and might commence its cultivation. The East Indies and Brazil were supplying to Great Britain from one-third to one-half of the cotton she was annually manufacturing. The other half, or two-thirds, she might obtain from other sources, and repudiate all traffic with our planters. Southern men, therefore, could not conceive of any thing but ruin to themselves, by any considerable advance in duties on foreign imports. They understood the protective policy as contemplating the supply of our country with home manufactured articles to the exclusion of those of foreign countries. This would confine the planters, in the sale of their cotton, to the American market mainly, and leave them in the power of moneyed corporations; which, possessing the ability, might control the prices of their staple, to the irreparable injury of the South. With slave labor they could not become manufacturers, and must, therefore, remain at the mercy of the North, both as to food and clothing, unless the European markets should be retained. Out of this conviction grew the war upon Corporations; the hostility to the employment of foreign capital in developing the mineral, agricultural, and manufacturing resources of the country; the efforts to destroy the banks and the credit system; the attempts to reduce the currency to gold and silver; the system of collecting the public revenues in coin; the withdrawal of the public moneys from all the banks as a basis of paper circulation; and the sleepless vigilance of the South in resisting all systems of internal improvements by the General Government. Its statesmen foresaw that a paper currency would keep up the price of Northern products one or two hundred per cent. above the specie standard; that combinations of capitalists, whether engaged in manufacturing wool, cotton, or iron, would draw off labor from the cultivation of the soil, and cause large bodies of the producers to become consumers; and that roads and canals, connecting the West with the East, were effectual means of bringing the agricultural and manufacturing classes into closer proximity, to the serious limitation of the foreign commerce of the country, the checking of the growth of the navy, and the manifest, injury of the planters.