The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 9

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CHAPTER V.

THE BEGINNING OF THE PARTICULARISTIC REACTION

Slavery and the Industrial Policies of the Union--President Monroe and Protection after 1820--The Committee on Manufactures--The Tariff Bill of 1823--The General Character of the Bill, and its Failure to Pa.s.s--President Monroe's Message of 1823, and Protection--The Tariff Bill of 1824--Mr. Clay's Argument in its Support--Mr. Clay's Argument Answered--The First Expression of the Doctrine that Protection and Slavery were Hostile Interests--The Bill Amended and Pa.s.sed--The Tariff of 1824 not yet Considered Sectional Legislation--South Carolina and the Tariff of 1824--The Historical Development of the Doctrine of Internal Improvements--Madison's Ideas upon Internal Improvements--The Bill of 1822 for Internal Improvements--Pa.s.sage of the Bill, and a.n.a.lysis of the Vote upon it--The Bill in the Interests of the West--President Monroe's Veto, and Communication of May 4th, 1822--President Monroe's Argument, and the Vote upon the Veto--Congressional Act of 1824 for Distinguis.h.i.+ng National from Local Improvements--Foreign Relations During Monroe's Second Term--Russia and the Northwest Coast of America--The Holy Alliance--The Congress at Verona--Mr. Adams' Declaration to Baron Tuyl--Mr. Canning's Proposal to Mr. Rush--Mr. Canning's Declaration to Prince Polignac--The "Monroe Doctrine"--The Meaning of the Monroe Propositions in 1824--Failure to Commit Congress to these Propositions--The Particularistic Reaction Scarcely Discoverable before 1824.

[Sidenote: Slavery and the industrial policies of the Union.]

It was hoped and believed that the settlement of the Missouri question and the compromise in reference to the remainder of the Louisiana cession had put the problem of negro slavery out of the realm of national politics. In fact, however, the struggle over these questions had introduced it into that realm, and had {109} first opened the eyes of the slaveholders to the bearings of the slavery interest upon all the questions of const.i.tutional law and public policy. From the point of view of that interest their att.i.tude toward all these questions was more and more determined as they came to understand more and more clearly the relation of these questions to that interest. While, therefore, the settlement and the compromise served to withdraw the question of slavery from the direct and immediate issue, they, at the same time, left it the secret influence over views and actions in many, if not most, directions.

At the next session, beginning in December of 1821, propositions were introduced into the Senate to limit and decrease the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States courts, to make the Senate itself a court of appeal from the regular Judiciary in cases where a "State"

should be a party, and to limit to two hundred the number of members in the House of Representatives.

The purpose of all these projects is apparent. Indeed, their proposers said openly and frankly that their purpose was to lessen and limit the powers of the general Government in the interests of "States'-rights."

It was natural, however, that the new spirit of particularism should attack the policies of the Government rather than the structure of the political system, or, more correctly, should undertake to control these policies before it sought to transform that system.

[Sidenote: President Monroe and protection after 1820.]

We have seen with what unanimity and national enthusiasm the protection of home industries was regarded, in the half decade between 1815 and 1820, as a measure indispensable to the attainment and maintenance of industrial independence. Not even Calhoun then understood the relation between this policy and the interests of slavery. The Presidents, Madison and {110} Monroe, were utterly oblivious to it. Even after the Missouri struggle, Mr. Monroe continued to recommend the protection of manufactures for the attainment of industrial independence as the true national policy. His annual messages of 1821 and of 1822 contain this recommendation. He either did not comprehend the relation of the slavery interests to the protective system or disregarded it. It could hardly have been the latter, for, although he was no radical supporter of slavery, he was a slaveholder and a very conservative man.

[Sidenote: The committee on Manufactures.]

The House of Representatives, the body which had upheld even radically national views of the character of the political system during the Missouri struggle, very naturally responded to Mr. Monroe's recommendation, and referred it to its committee on Manufactures for consideration and support. Heretofore this subject had been referred to the committee on Ways and Means, the regular revenue-raising committee. Its reference now to the committee on Manufactures is good evidence that the House of Representatives regarded a protective tariff as a subject which Congress might deal with independently, and without any necessary connection with the subject of the revenue. Such a view is radically national. It rests upon the doctrine that Congress may do anything in the regulation of foreign trade and commerce which, in its own opinion, is conducive to the general welfare, regardless of the pecuniary needs of the Government.

[Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1823.]

On January 9th, 1823, Mr. Tod, of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the committee on Manufactures, reported a tariff bill. It proposed to nearly double the existing duty upon iron, quadruple that upon coa.r.s.e woollens, and to increase the custom-house valuation of dyed cotton goods by some forty per centum.

{111} Moreover, the bill made no provision for the future reduction of these duties. It therefore indicated that protection was to be the permanent policy, protection so high as to amount to the prohibition of the importation of coa.r.s.e cottons and woollens and bar iron. In fact, Mr. Tod conceded that the prohibition of the importation of coa.r.s.e woollens was intended. He said that the tariff of 1816 on coa.r.s.e cotton goods had given a monopoly of the domestic markets for such goods to the home manufacturers, while the price of the goods had been reduced through home compet.i.tion by one-half, and that his committee desired to bring about the same result in regard to the manufacture of coa.r.s.e woollens.

[Sidenote: The general character of the bill, and its failure to pa.s.s.]

Mr. Tod was not able to get a vote upon his bill at this session of the Congress. Three significant facts, however, were elicited in the course of the debate upon it, facts which indicated the trend of political history. These facts were that the bill was a Pennsylvania measure, that the South would oppose it, and that Ma.s.sachusetts and New York City would unite with the South in this opposition. It was, in fact, a Ma.s.sachusetts man, Mr. Gorham, who denounced the bill as sectional legislation, and advised the South to resist it to the utmost. Cotton and commerce, and that meant slavery and commerce, were beginning to discover their affinity.

[Sidenote: President Monroe's Message of 1823, and protection.]

President Monroe, however, does not seem to have shared this view of the subject. In his message of December 2nd, 1823, he again recommended additional protection to "those articles which we are prepared to manufacture, or which are more immediately connected with the defence and independence of the country."

Thus encouraged by the President, the House of {112} Representatives again referred the question of increasing the tariff to Mr. Tod's committee.

[Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1824.]

On January 9th, 1824, Mr. Tod brought in his new bill. It was a more moderate proposition than that of the preceding session; still it provided for a substantial increase of the duties on woollens and iron.

Mr. Tod a.s.sumed the const.i.tutionality of the bill to be a settled question, and supported the policy of it by arguments from the necessity of attaining industrial independence in the manufacture of the necessaries of life, from the necessity of creating new and more remunerative employments for labor, and from the policy of developing better home markets for agricultural products. He predicted that an ultimate reduction of the prices of manufactured goods would be the result of the increased home compet.i.tion produced by higher duties. He did not, however, make out any very satisfactory prospects for commerce. This branch of the national pursuits was to make the sacrifice.

[Sidenote: Mr. Clay's argument in its support.]

Mr. Clay made the great argument in defence of the measure. He elaborated the patriotic reason in every direction. He pointed out the utter dependence of the country upon foreign markets, both for the sale of its agricultural products and for the purchase of manufactured goods. He demonstrated that these relations had been created by the quarter of a century of war in Europe, forcing the European countries to buy the agricultural products of the United States to an unusual amount, and at high prices, and showed how the restoration of general peace in Europe had reduced the demand for, and the price of, these products, while it left the United States dependent upon Europe for manufactured articles. And he urged the accomplishment of industrial independence {113} as a necessary corollary of political independence.

He contended that the aid granted to the manufacturing interests would impose no sacrifice upon the agricultural and commercial interests; that by the establishment of new manufacturing centres new home markets for the products of agriculture would be created, which would not only emanc.i.p.ate the country from the necessity of foreign markets for these products, but would give the country steady and certain markets, under its own control; and that the growth of manufactures would speedily result in the establishment of an export trade in manufactured goods to all parts of the world, and especially to South America, which would ultimately more than compensate the commercial interests for the temporary losses they might incur by reason of the increased duties. This was a strongly tinted picture upon both sides.

It represented the distress of the country too darkly, and it painted the speculative benefits of the high tariff in too vivid colors.

Moreover, Mr. Clay now omitted any reference to the temporary character of protection. It now appeared to be a permanent article of his creed.

[Sidenote: Mr. Clay's argument answered.]

[Sidenote: The first expression of the doctrine that protection and slavery were hostile interests.]

Webster for Ma.s.sachusetts, Cambreleng for the city of New York, and Barbour for the South, denied Mr. Clay's statement in regard to the intense and general financial distress throughout the country, and demonstrated the destructive effects of a high tariff upon agriculture and commerce, and upon the existing manufacturing interests themselves. They contended that such a tariff would so prohibit importation of foreign products as to make it impossible for Europe to buy the agricultural products of the United States, since Europe would not be able to pay for them; that the promised increase of domestic markets would not at all compensate for the loss of {114} foreign markets; that commerce would thus be destroyed both ways; and that even the manufacturing industries already established would suffer from the unnatural compet.i.tion which would be created by the inducements which the high tariff would hold out to capital otherwise employed. Mr. Barbour frankly declared that the slave labor of the South could not be used in the development of manufactures, and that, therefore, the high tariff must inure to the benefit of the North, by making the South tributary to the North for all manufactured goods.

The theory accepted by all parties, however, at the moment, was, that the duties were paid ultimately by the consumers of the imported goods. Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, p.r.o.nounced this doctrine himself. Upon this view the North must pay the duties equally, at least, with the South. So long, then, as this idea was held, and so long as the commercial interests of Ma.s.sachusetts, Maine, and the city of New York made common cause with the agricultural interests of the South against the bill, it could not be strictly regarded as sectional legislation, it could not develop into a political and const.i.tutional question between the North and the South.

[Sidenote: The bill amended and pa.s.sed.]

While this combination of interests was not able to prevent the House from finally pa.s.sing the bill by a narrow majority, it did succeed in imposing several very substantial modifications upon it in the direction of more moderate protection.

In the Senate the bill suffered still further modification in the same direction. The burden of the Senate's amendments fell, however, on the wool- and hemp-growing and liquor-distilling West. It was for this reason that the House of Representatives refused to concur in {115} them. Recourse was then had to a conference committee, which arranged a compromise that gave a little less protection than the House had voted, and a little more than the Senate had voted.

The tariff of May, 1824, was still only a moderately protective tariff. It was certainly in only one particular anything like prohibitory; it preserved the high tariff of 1816 on coa.r.s.e cotton goods. In other respects it was not much more than a continuation of the reasonable duties already imposed.

[Sidenote: The tariff of 1824 not yet considered sectional legislation.]

So long as the tariff remained moderately protective, and was approved in Kentucky and Missouri, and disapproved in Ma.s.sachusetts, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Maine, and the city of New York, and so long as its burdens were generally believed to fall ultimately upon the consumers of the dutiable articles, it could not take on the form of a sectional issue, dominated by the question of slavery. Some of the Southerners had, indeed, discovered that slave labor could not be employed in the mills, and that, therefore, protection of manufactures would not secure the establishment of these industries in the South, and had begun to treat the tariff question in a manner to develop a party issue out of it. But this tendency had not advanced far enough in 1824 to produce a division of the all-comprehending Republican party. It needed another four years of personal differences among the leaders, another revision of the tariff in the direction of higher duties, and a more complete consolidation of the North for protection, before this result could be attained.

[Sidenote: South Carolina and the tariff of 1824.]

During the pa.s.sage of the bill public meetings had been held throughout South Carolina protesting against it, and the year subsequent to its enactment the South Carolina legislature denounced it as unconst.i.tutional, but the people {116} of the Commonwealth acquiesced, though with very bad temper, in the execution of the law.

The other question of internal policy, to which certain of the historians refer as suffering under the baleful influences of the slavery interest immediately after 1820, was the question of national internal improvements.

[Sidenote: The historical development of the doctrine of internal improvements.]

This question became a definite issue in Congress for the first time on December 19th, 1805, when a committee of the Senate, charged with the duty of reporting to the Senate an opinion as to how the money appropriated in the Enabling Act for Ohio ought to be applied, recommended the use of it for the building of a road across the Alleghanies from c.u.mberland, in Maryland, to a point upon the Ohio River, near Wheeling, in Virginia.

If we may take the first Act pa.s.sed by Congress, that of March 29th, 1806, in regard to the matter as expressing the views of the Government and the people upon the subject, we must conclude that the first matured ideas were that the general Government had the power to lay out and construct roads within and through the Commonwealths, by and with the consent of the Commonwealths through which they might pa.s.s. The c.u.mberland road was originally built by the general Government, after the consent thereto of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia had been obtained. The appropriations for subsequent repairs upon the road were, however, not considered as requiring the consent of those Commonwealths before being made or expended.

[Sidenote: Madison's ideas upon internal improvements.]

The second stage in the evolution of opinion upon the subject was attained in the year 1817, when Mr. Madison vetoed Mr. Calhoun's bill for setting aside the bonus and the dividends to be paid to the Government by the United States Bank as a fund for constructing roads and ca.n.a.ls, and {117} improving the navigation of water-courses in the several Commonwealths. This bill proposed to authorize the general Government to expend the money, thus appropriated, only with the consent of the Commonwealth, or Commonwealths, in which the proposed improvement might lay, antecedently given, and distributed the sum to be spent among the Commonwealths according to the ratio of their representation in the national House of Representatives. As has been pointed out, Madison vetoed this bill on the ground that the power to enact it was not to be found among the enumerated powers of Congress, and could not be regarded as a necessary and proper means for carrying out any of the enumerated powers.

The President drew no distinction between the power to construct internal improvements and the power to appropriate money for their construction, nor between such powers and the power to administer them, or to exercise jurisdiction over them. He regarded all, or any of these things, as unwarranted by the Const.i.tution. He furthermore declared that the consent of the several Commonwealths to the exercise of such powers by the general Government could not make the exercise of them const.i.tutional, unless that consent should be given in the form of an amendment to the Const.i.tution.

The vote upon the vetoed bill in the House of Representatives manifested the fact that a substantial majority of that body remained unconvinced by the President's argument. It is reasonably certain that Mr. Madison's views were not the views of the country at that moment.

A large majority of the people felt that he had abandoned his earlier faith in regard to this subject. An a.n.a.lysis of the vote upon the vetoed bill shows that New England was almost unanimous in opposing the measure; that Virginia and North {118} Carolina also opposed it, though less decidedly; that New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Northwest, together with South Carolina and Georgia, favored it; and that Kentucky and Tennessee inclined to favor it. Certainly, down to 1817, no influence of the slavery interest upon the question of internal improvements is discoverable. It was evident that the general opinion was, that the middle Atlantic section and the Northwest would receive the larger share of the benefits of a national system of internal improvements. It was also evident that New England viewed the matter purely in that light, and that Virginia was impelled wholly by her ancient principle of strict construction of the powers of the general Government. It was South Carolina and Georgia whose actions appeared at this juncture to spring from unselfish and patriotic motives.

[Sidenote: The bill of 1822 for internal improvements.]