The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 14

DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION TO INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND PROTECTION

Jackson's Ideas Concerning Internal Improvements--The Maysville Road Bill--The Slavery Question not Involved in the Vote on the Bill or in the Veto--Railway Building Begun--The Commencement of the Struggle for the Repeal of the Tariff of 1828--Jackson on the Tariff of 1828, in his First Annual Message--George McDuffie as South Carolina's Political Economist--Dr. Thomas Cooper--Mr. McDuffie's Tariff Bill--The Tariff Bill of 1830--McDuffie's Amendment--McDuffie's Doctrine that the Producers of Exports Pay Finally the Duties on the Imports--The Acceptance of Mr. McDuffie's Doctrine at the South--Growing Belief in the Incapacity of Slave Labor for Manufacture--The Tariff p.r.o.nounced Unconst.i.tutional--Growth of the Protection Idea--Jackson on the Tariff and the Surplus Revenue Derived therefrom, in the Message of December, 1830--Southern Disappointment--"The South Carolina Exposition"--Calhoun's Doctrine of "States' rights"--Nullification in Theory--The Nullification and Anti-nullification Parties in South Carolina--First Attempt to try the Validity of the Tariff in the United States Courts--Nullification and Rebellion--Jackson's Message of December, 1831, on the Tariff Issue--The Bill from the Committee on Ways and Means--The Tariff Bill of 1832 from the Committee on Manufactures--Pa.s.sage of the Tariff of 1832 by the House of Representatives--The "American System."

[Sidenote: Jackson's ideas concerning internal improvements.]

In his first annual message President Jackson referred to the general dissatisfaction with the manner of {167} dealing with the question of internal improvements which had prevailed to that time, and proposed that the general Government should abandon the subject entirely and should distribute the surplus of the revenue, above the wants of the Government, among the Commonwealths, and leave to them the expenditure of the money upon internal improvements.

[Sidenote: The Maysville Road Bill.]

The Congress, however, paid no regard to the President's recommendation. In May, 1830, it sent up to the President for his approval a bill authorizing and requiring the Government to take stock in a Kentucky turnpike, running from Maysville on the Ohio River to Lexington, some sixty miles inward.

[Sidenote: The veto of the Bill.]

The President vetoed the bill, May 27th. His special reason was that the road was not a national, but a local, matter. He did not attack the Monroe principle upon the general subject of internal improvements, but he referred to the recommendation contained in his annual message as still expressing his view of the manner in which the Government should rid itself of the embarra.s.sments into which it was being farther and farther drawn by the practice of voting national money for internal improvements. He argued that the subject must be considered upon its own merits, and not brought into connection with the tariff policy. He thus saw the prospect of the expenditure of millions of national money upon internal improvements in order to relieve the protectionists of the embarra.s.sment of a great surplus, and denounced it. He contended that the Government should adopt its policy upon each of these subjects as if the other did not exist. He urged, finally, that, if the people wanted the general Government to undertake internal improvements, they should {168} so amend the Const.i.tution as to give the Government sufficient jurisdiction over the roads and ca.n.a.ls, which it might build, to protect them against wanton injury, and to collect the tolls necessary to keep them in repair. This he declared to be necessary to any satisfactory exercise of powers upon the general subject by the Government.

The veto certainly exerted some influence upon the minds of the Representatives. A majority still voted for the bill, but it was a much reduced majority. The vote upon the vetoed bill stood ninety-six to ninety. The bill was therefore lost.

[Sidenote: The slavery question not involved in the vote on the bill or in the veto.]

The exact question at issue was not, as we have seen, the general policy of internal improvements, but it was whether the Maysville road was a national improvement. An a.n.a.lysis of the vote upon the subject may not, therefore, have any significance, from the point of view of the general question. Roughly, we may say that a majority of the Representatives from the South voted against the bill, a large majority of those from the Northwest voted for it, a majority of those from Pennsylvania and New Jersey voted for it, while a majority of those from New York voted against it, and, lastly, the Representatives from New England were divided. It thus appears rather far fetched to ascribe the att.i.tude of the opponents of the bill, in any section, to the influence of the slavery interest. Those who voted against the bill said they did so because the object for which the appropriation was sought was a local affair, managed by a private corporation, for private gain. That uncompromising enemy of slavery, Mr. John W.

Taylor, of New York, was prominent among those who took this position and voted against the bill. He even p.r.o.nounced it unconst.i.tutional, and was inclined to the {169} view, as we have seen, that internal improvements generally were left by the Const.i.tution for the Commonwealths to construct and control.

[Sidenote: Too much influence in determining the national policy toward internal improvements usually ascribed to the veto.]

It is usual to attribute to the veto of this bill the overthrow of the policy of internal improvements by the general Government. This proposition will hardly bear close examination. Congress continued to make appropriations for internal improvements, which the President usually vetoed, if they were in separate bills, and usually approved, if they were included in the general appropriation bills. It is calculated that while Adams signed appropriations for internal improvements to the amount of less than two millions and a half of dollars, Jackson approved disburs.e.m.e.nts for these purposes to the amount of more than ten millions of dollars.

[Sidenote: Railway building begun.]

The fact is that the building of railways was the chief force which put an end to road- and ca.n.a.l-making by the general Government. The construction of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the parent of the New York Central system, was begun in 1825. In 1827 the survey of the Boston and Albany line was begun. The same year the Pennsylvania system had its origin. One year later the Baltimore and Ohio system was founded. The year of the veto of the Maysville road bill forty-one miles of railroad were being operated in the United States, and at the close of the decade more than two thousand miles. As the railway system spread over the country, through private enterprise, the appropriations of national money for internal improvements became more and more confined to the specific improvements of rivers and harbors.

The roads and ca.n.a.ls of a national character were being made unnecessary by the extension of {170} the railways. It is undoubtedly, then, far more plausible and natural to attribute the overthrow of the policy of internal improvements by the general Government to the growth of the railways, constructed and operated by private corporations under Commonwealth charters, on the one side, and, on the other, to the settled conviction that the general Government did not have the const.i.tutional powers adequate to the successful establishment and protection of a system of works based upon that policy, and to the unsatisfactory experience which the country had had in attempting to distinguish local from national enterprises and to confine appropriations to those of the latter character.

It is difficult to see any special connection of the interests of slavery with the decline of the policy. It is true that the slaveholders were becoming strict constructionists generally. They had learned from the Missouri struggle that Congress must not be allowed to magnify its powers when forming the Territories into Commonwealths, and they had learned from the tariff struggles that Congress must not be allowed to magnify its powers in regard to the regulation of foreign commerce and the raising of revenue, but, as to internal improvements, no reliable evidence of a consciousness, on the part of the slaveholders, of any particular connection between their peculiar interest and a policy upon this subject by the general Government is discoverable.

On the contrary, in the struggle for the repeal of the Tariff of 1828 the influence of the slavery interest is easily remarked, and is clearly seen to have been controlling.

[Sidenote: The commencement of the struggle for the repeal of the Tariff of 1828.]

On February 10th, 1829, Mr. William Smith, the senior Senator from South Carolina, presented to the Senate the protest of the legislature of South {171} Carolina against Congressional protection to domestic manufactures. This memorial p.r.o.nounced all such acts to be unconst.i.tutional, except as incidental to raising the revenue or regulating commerce, and impolitic even then, when their operation would be unequal upon the different sections of the country, and felt by any section to be oppressive. The language of the paper was respectful, moderate, dignified, and forcible, and it contained no threats of disunion, or of violent or unlawful resistance. The legislature asked that the protest should be entered on the journal of the Senate. The Senate, however, only ordered it to be printed.

The South Carolinians promised themselves, nevertheless, some measure of relief from what they supposed would be the policy of the newly elected President. Being a Southern man, it was naturally supposed that he would recognize Southern interests in the policy upon this subject which he would recommend. But, while Jackson had not committed himself to protection for the sake of the manufacturers or of the producers of raw material, he was a strong Union man and an American, and the argument for the tariff from the point of view of national industrial independence exercised a prevailing influence in determining his att.i.tude toward the subject.

[Sidenote: Jackson on the Tariff of 1828, in his first annual message.]

[Sidenote: Jackson's views on the Tariff as a general policy.]

In his message of December 8th, 1829, he wrote that the Tariff of 1828 had not proved itself so beneficial to the manufacturers or so injurious to commerce and agriculture as had been antic.i.p.ated; that he regretted that all nations would not abolish restrictions, and refer the management of trade to individual enterprise; that since, however, they would not do so, a tariff was the necessary policy of the United States; but that in the {172} face of the fact that the national debt would soon be paid, and the sinking fund would not be much longer required, a modification of the existing tariff in the direction of a reduction of duties would soon be the true and necessary policy; and that the principle to be followed in making such a modification ought to be to reduce the duties upon such articles as might come into compet.i.tion with home products no further than would leave to the latter a fair chance in such compet.i.tion; and that from the general principle of a reduction to this point must be excepted the duties on the implements and prime necessities of war, all of which should enjoy a higher protection than that accorded to other articles. Evidently, according to this doctrine, the chief reductions should fall upon articles not coming into compet.i.tion with home products, such articles as tea, coffee, etc., at that time termed the unprotected articles.

Jackson had thus antic.i.p.ated Clay's American system of the tariff by nearly three years, as we shall see.

The South Carolinians were greatly disappointed by this expression of the President's views, although they claimed that the message recommended substantial tariff reduction. This part of the message was referred to the committee on Manufactures, according to the rule of procedure which had prevailed in the House of Representatives for nearly a decade, and which showed that the matter of the tariff was not regarded as something purely incidental to the raising of revenue.

[Sidenote: George McDuffie as South Carolina's political economist.]

[Sidenote: Dr. Thomas Cooper.]

The claim was now put forward, however, that the subject properly belonged to the domain of the committee on Ways and Means. Mr. George McDuffie, of South Carolina, was at this moment the chairman of this committee. He was a man of keen intelligence, strong {173} courage, and great persistence. He was the political economist of the slave-labor system, as Calhoun was its political scientist and const.i.tutional lawyer. It is to be surmised, at least, that he learned much of his political economy from the notorious, if not famous, Dr.

Thomas Cooper, the British President of South Carolina College. It is true that Mr. McDuffie's college days had pa.s.sed before Dr. Cooper taught in the inst.i.tution, but the Doctor wrote and published much upon economic and political subjects between 1820 and 1830. In fact, he set the direction of thought upon such subjects in South Carolina and throughout a large portion of the South during that period. As has been already mentioned, he was an Englishman by birth. He had spent a part of his earlier life in France, and had imbibed the doctrines of French republicanism. For this reason he was disliked and shunned by conservative men in England to such a degree as to make longer residence in his native country uncomfortable to him. He came to the United States in the last decade of the eighteenth century. His radical views and his violent expressions of them soon drew attention to him here. He was one of the men prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition laws of 1798. He made his way to South Carolina about the beginning of the third decade of this century, and found there a well prepared soil for his Girondist views of federal Government and his free-trade views in political economy. A true estimate of responsibilities for the events of 1832 in South Carolina would probably hold him more culpable than Calhoun himself. It was from such a thinker, and he was a keen and vigorous thinker, that Mr. McDuffie received impulse, if not actual instruction, in his reasoning.

Mr. McDuffie argued that the power to impose a tariff {174} was not expressly vested by the Const.i.tution in the Government; that, therefore, if it existed at all, as a power of the Government, it must be incidental to some express provision; and that it could be incidental only to the power for raising the revenue. He, therefore, contended further that all tariff bills must originate in the House of Representatives, and in the regular revenue committee of that House, the committee of Ways and Means.

[Sidenote: Mr. McDuffie's Tariff Bill.]

Congress had disregarded the protest of the South Carolina Legislature of the previous February. It was well known that the committee on Manufactures in the House was favorable to the maintenance of the existing duties. It seemed, therefore, to Mr. McDuffie, and those who thought with him, both natural and necessary that the committee of Ways and Means should claim their const.i.tutional prerogative, and make an effort to get the ear of Congress to their representations.

Consequently, on February 5th, 1830, Mr. McDuffie reported a tariff bill from his committee, without having had the subject specifically referred to them by the House. The bill provided for a moderate reduction of the tariff all around, but still left a duty of thirty-three and one-third per centum _ad valorem_ upon woollen fabrics.

The interest attaching to this proposition lies in the fact that it contains substantially the terms upon which the South Carolinians were willing to compromise the tariff question. It shows them to have been still moderate tariff men, rather than out and out free-traders. To the unprejudiced mind of the present day it certainly appears to have been an offer which merited some consideration, but, after a single reading, it was ordered to lie on the table, from which it was never taken up.

{175} [Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1830.]

Meanwhile the committee on Manufactures were very deliberately maturing a measure. It was reported to the House early in April, and taken up for consideration on the 15th. It was nothing more than an administrative measure for the purpose of securing a stricter execution of the existing tariff.

[Sidenote: McDuffie's Amendment.]

Mr. McDuffie made another effort to move the House to consider a reduction of duties, in the form of an amendment to this bill. He offered such an amendment, which provided for a return to the duties imposed before 1824 upon woollens, cottons, iron, hemp, etc.

[Sidenote: McDuffie's doctrine that the producers of exports pay finally the duties on the imports.]

It was in support of this amendment that he made his famous argument of April 29th, 1830, in which he developed, for the first time, the doctrine in regard to the final payment of the duties which furnished the economic basis of nullification. That doctrine was that the producers of the exports, which are exchanged in the foreign markets for the imports, pay, finally, the duty upon the imports. His course of reasoning in the establishment of this doctrine was as follows: He reduced all trade ultimately to barter between producers, and then declared it to be self-evident that when a producer of exports should be obliged to pay a duty of twenty-five per centum upon the imports, which he had received in pay for his exports, before he could bring them into the country of his residence, he had received finally twenty-five per centum less for his exports than he would have received had he not been compelled to pay any duty upon his imports.

Mr. McDuffie then drew from the statistics of the foreign trade of the United States the fact that the sections cultivating cotton and rice, const.i.tuting less than {176} one-fifth of the Union, both in territory and population, produced thirty of the fifty-eight millions' worth of annual exports; and finally drew the conclusion from these premises that one-fifth of the people, the population of the planting sections, paid more than one-half of the duties on the imports of the country.

[Sidenote: The danger in Mr. McDuffie's conclusions.]

If this were true it was indeed a grievous burden. And if the people of the South, or that part of the South devoted to the production of these staples, believed it to be true, then would the reason for one great scruple against resistance to the execution of the tariff laws be removed, namely, the general belief theretofore prevailing, from the doctrine that the consumers of the imports ultimately pay the duties, that the burden of the duties fell nearly equally upon the different sections. So long as this belief was general the sense of oppression in any particular part or section of the country could not become very keen. Subst.i.tute for this old idea, however, the new doctrine advanced by Mr. McDuffie, and, under the existing distribution of the articles of export, there could not fail to be developed a most bitter sense of wrong and oppression on the part of the producers of the Southern staples.

[Sidenote: The acceptance of Mr. McDuffie's doctrine at the South.]

The Southerners, especially the South Carolinians, did embrace the new doctrine, apparently, at least, with all sincerity. It was utterly futile that Mr. Gorham and Mr. Everett pointed out to them the fact that they consumed only a comparatively small portion of the imports received in exchange for their exports, and sold the rest to the people of the other sections with the duties added on, thus s.h.i.+fting the duties upon the other sections. They clung to the new doctrine as if it were something for which they had long been seeking, and to which their {177} hearts were already too much attached to be drawn away by argument.

[Sidenote: Growing belief in the incapacity of slave labor for manufacture.]

It was in this speech, furthermore, that Mr. McDuffie abandoned his former view of the capacity of slave labor for manufacturing industry, and embraced and enounced the doctrine held before this by Colonel Hayne upon that subject, which was that slave labor could only be employed successfully in agriculture. This was, of course, another necessary element in the consolidation of the interests of the South against the tariff.

[Sidenote: The Tariff p.r.o.nounced unconst.i.tutional.]

It was in this speech, also, that Mr. McDuffie, for the first time, p.r.o.nounced the tariff unconst.i.tutional. He did not yet declare any and every tariff unconst.i.tutional, but only such a tariff as sacrificed one interest to another, or the interests of one section to those of another. This he claimed the existing tariff did do. The belief in the unconst.i.tutionality of the tariff was, of course, another necessary element in the preparation for resistance to its execution.

[Sidenote: McDuffie's threat of resistance to the execution of the Tariff laws.]