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Tariff controversy continued—Tariff of 1832—The crisis—Secession threatened—Compromise finally adopted—Debates—Mr. Hayne—Mr. McDuffie—Mr. Clay—Adjustment of the subject.

The opening of the year 1832, found the parties to the Tariff controversy once more engaged in earnest debate, on the floor of Congress; and midsummer witnessed the passage of a new Bill, including the principle of protection. This Act produced a crisis in the controversy, and led to the movements in South Carolina toward secession; and, to avert the threatened evil, the Bill was modified, in the following year, so as to make it acceptable to the South; and, so as, also, to settle the policy of the Government for the succeeding nine years. A few extracts from the debates of 1832, will serve to show what were the sentiments of the members of Congress, as to the effects of the protective policy on the different sections of the Union, up to that date:

Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "When the policy of '24 went into operation, the South was supplied from the West, through a single avenue, (the Saluda Mountain Gap,) with live stock, horses, cattle, and hogs, to the amount of considerably upward of a million of dollars a year. Under the pressure of the system, this trade has been regularly diminishing. It has already fallen more than one-half..... In consequence of the dire calamities which the system has inflicted on the South—blasting our commerce, and withering our prosperity—the West has been very nearly deprived of her best customer..... And what was found to be the result of four years' experience at the South? Not a hope fulfilled; not one promise performed; and our condition infinitely worse than it had been four years before. Sir, the whole South rose up as one man, and protested against any further experiment with this system..... Sir, I seize the opportunity to dispel forever the delusion that the South can find any compensation, in a home market, for the injurious operation of the protective system..... What a spectacle do you even now exhibit to the world? A large portion of your fellow-citizens, believing themselves to be grievously oppressed by an unwise and unconstitutional system, are clamoring at your doors for justice: while another portion, supposing that they are enjoying rich bounties under it, are treating their complaints with scorn and contempt..... This system may destroy the South, but it will not permanently advance the prosperity of the North. It may depress us, but can not elevate them. Beside, sir, if persevered in, it must annihilate that portion of the country from which the resources are to be drawn. And it may be well for gentlemen to reflect whether adhering to this policy would not be acting like the man who 'killed the goose which laid the golden eggs.' Next to the Christian religion, I consider Free Trade, in its largest sense, as the greatest blessing that can be conferred on any people."

Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "At the close of the late war with Great Britain, every thing in the political and commercial changes, resulting from the general peace, indicated unparalleled prosperity to the Southern States, and great embarrassment and distress to those of the North. The nations of the Continent had all directed their efforts to the business of manufacturing; and all Europe may be said to have converted their swords into machinery, creating unprecedented demand for cotton, the great staple of the Southern States. There is nothing in the history of commerce that can be compared with the increased demand for this staple, notwithstanding the restrictions by which this Government has limited that demand. As cotton, tobacco, and rice, are produced only on a small portion of the globe, while all other agricultural staples are common to every region of the earth, this circumstance gave the planting States very great advantages. To cap the climax of the commercial advantages opened to the cotton planters, England, their great and most valued customer, received their cotton under a mere nominal duty. On the other hand, the prospects of the Northern States were as dismal as those of the Southern States were brilliant. They had lost the carrying trade of the world, which the wars of Europe had thrown into their hands. They had lost the demand and the high prices which our own war had created for their grain and other productions; and, soon afterward, they also lost the foreign market for their grain, owing, partly, to foreign corn laws, but still more to other causes. Such were the prospects, and such the well-founded hope of the Southern States at the close of the late war, in which they bore so glorious a part in vindicating the freedom of trade. But where are now these cheering prospects and animating hopes? Blasted, sir—utterly blasted—by the consuming and withering course of a system of legislation which wages an exterminating war against the blessings of commerce and the bounties of a merciful Providence; and which, by an impious perversion of language, is called 'Protection.'.... I will not add, sir, my deep and deliberate conviction, in the face of all the miserable cant and hypocrisy with which the world abounds on the subject, that any course of measures which shall hasten the abolition of slavery, by destroying the value of slave labor, will bring upon the Southern States the greatest political calamity with which they can be afflicted; for I sincerely believe, that when the people of those States shall be compelled, by such means, to emancipate their slaves, they will be but a few degrees above the condition of slaves themselves. Yes, sir, mark what I say: when the people of the South cease to be masters, by the tampering influence of this Government, direct or indirect, they will assuredly be slaves. It is the clear and distinct perception of the irresistible tendency of this protective system to precipitate us upon this great moral and political catastrophe, that has animated me to raise my warning voice, that my fellow-citizens may foresee, and foreseeing, avoid the destiny that would otherwise befall them..... And here, sir, it is as curious as it is melancholy and distressing, to see how striking is the analogy between the colonial vassalage to which the manufacturing States have reduced the planting States, and that which formerly bound the Anglo-American colonies to the British Empire.... England said to her American colonies 'You shall not trade with the rest of the world for such manufactures as are produced in the mother country.' The manufacturing States say to their Southern colonies, 'You shall not trade with the rest of the world for such manufactures as we produce, under a penalty of forty per cent. upon the value of every cargo detected in this illicit commerce; which penalty, aforesaid, shall be levied, collected, and paid out of the products of your industry, to nourish and sustain ours.'"

Mr. Clay, in referring to the condition of the country at large, said: "I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an imperfect sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extended; the arts flourishing; the face of the country improved; our people fully and profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibiting tranquillity, contentment, and happiness. And, if we descend into particulars, we have the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt; land rising slowly in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready, though not an extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry; innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment; our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign and coastwise, swelled and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless steamboats; the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing, embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the term of seven years were to be selected, of the greatest prosperity which this people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present Constitution, it would be exactly that period of seven years which immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824.

"This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and distress to brightness and prosperity, has been mainly the work of American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry. The foes of the American system, in 1824, with great boldness and confidence, predicted, first, the ruin of the public revenue, and the creation of a necessity to resort to direct taxation. The gentleman from South Carolina, (General Hayne,) I believe, thought that the tariff of 1824 would operate a reduction of revenue to the large amount of eight millions of dollars; secondly, the destruction of our navigation; thirdly, the desolation of commercial cities; and, fourthly, the augmentation of the price of articles of consumption, and further decline in that of the articles of our exports. Every prediction which they made has failed—utterly failed..... It is now proposed to abolish the system to which we owe so much of the public prosperity..... Why, sir, there is scarcely an interest—scarcely a vocation in society—which is not embraced by the beneficence of this system..... The error of the opposite argument, is in assuming one thing, which, being denied, the whole fails; that is, it assumes that the whole labor of the United States would be profitably employed without manufactures. Now, the truth is, that the system excites and creates labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates additional ability to consume; which acts on all the objects contributing to human comfort and enjoyment..... I could extend and dwell on the long list of articles—the hemp, iron, lead, coal, and other items—for which a demand is created in the home market by the operation of the American system; but I should exhaust the patience of the Senate. Where, where should we find a market for all these articles, if it did not exist at home? What would be the condition of the largest portion of our people, and of the territory, if this home market were annihilated? How could they be supplied with objects of prime necessity? What would not be the certain and inevitable decline in the price of all these articles, but for the home market?"

But we must not burden our pages with further extracts. What has been quoted affords the principal arguments of the opposing parties, on the points in which we are interested, down to 1832. The adjustment, in 1833, of the subject until 1842, and its subsequent agitation, are too familiar, or of too easy access to the general reader, to require a notice from us here.