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MAY 11, 1830.]

Reduction of Duties on Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa.

[SENATE.

a cruel oppression upon the people; one which they ought up: 1. Eight or nine cents a bushel for the salt. 2. Twennot to bear without necessity, and which there is no neces- ty cents for duty. 3. Eight or ten cents for merchant's sity, as shall be fully shown, for bearing any longer. profit at New Orleans. 4. Sixteen or seventeen cents for Mr. B. entered into statistical details, to show the ag-freight to Louisville. 5. Fifteen or twenty cents for the gregate amount of this tax, which he stated to be enor- second merchant's profit, who counts his per centum on mous, and contrary to every principle of taxation, even if his whole outlay. In all, about seventy-five cents for a taxes were so necessary to justify the taxing of salt. He bushel of fifty pounds, which, if there was no duty, and stated the importation of foreign salt, in 1829, at six mil- the tariff regulations of weight for measure abolished, « lions of bushels, round numbers; the value of seven hun- would be bought in New Orleans, by the measured bushel dred and fifteen thousand dollars, and the tax at twenty of eighty pounds weight, for eight or nine cents, and cents a bushel, one million two hundred thousand dollars; would be brought up the river, by steamboats, at the rate the merchant's profit upon that daty at fifty per cent. is of thirty-three and a third cents per hundred weight. It six hundred thousand dollars; and the secret or hidden tax, thus appears that the salt tax falls heaviest upon the West. in the shape of false weight for true measure, at the rate It is an error to suppose that the South is the greatest sufof thirty pounds in the bushel, was four hundred and fifty | ferer. The West wants it for every purpose the South thousand dollars. Here, then, is taxation to the amount does, and two great purposes besides-curing provision for of about two millions and a quarter of dollars, upon an export, and salting stock. The West uses alum salt, and article costing seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, on this the duty is heaviest, because the price is lower, and that article one of prime necessity and universal use, and the weight greater. Twenty cents on salt which costs ranking, next after bread, in the catalogue of articles for eight or nine cents a bushel is a much heavier duty than on human subsistence. that which costs fifteen cents; and then the deception in The distribution of this enormous tax upon the differ- the substitution of weight for measure is much greater in ent sections of the Union, was the next object of Mr. B's alum salt, which weighs so much more than the Liverpool inquiry; and, for this purpose, he viewed the Union under blown. Like the South, the West receives no bounties or three great divisions-the northeast, the south, and the allowances on account of the salt duties. This may be west. To the northeast, and especially to some parts of fair in the South, where the imported salt is not reit, he considered the salt tax to be no burthen, but rather exported upon fish or provisions; but it is unfair in the a benefit and a money-making business. The fishing al- West, where the exportation of beef, pork, bacon, cheese, lowances and bounties produced this effect. In consider- and butter, is prodigious, and the foreign salt re-exported ation of the salt duty, the curers and exporters of fish upon the whole of it.

ces.

are allowed money out of the treasury, to the amount, as Mr. B. then argued, with great warmth, that the proviit was intended, of the salt duty paid by them; but it has sion curers and exporters were entitled to the same bounbeen proved to be twice as much. The annual allowance ties and allowances with the exporters of fish. The claims is about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the of each rested upon the same principle, and upon the prinaggregate drawn from the treasury since the first imposi-ciple of all drawbacks-that of a reimbursement of the tion of the salt duty in 1789, is shown by the treasury re-duty which was paid on the imported salt when re-exported turns to be five millions of dollars. Much of this is drawn on fish and provisions. The same principle covers the by undue means, as is shown by the report of the Secre- beef and pork of the farmer, which covers the fish of the tary of the Treasury, at the commencement of the pre-fisherman; and such was the law in the beginning, The sent session, page eight of the annual report on the finan- first act of Congress, in the year 1789, which imposed a The Northeast makes much salt at home, and chiefly duty upon salt, allowed a bounty, in lieu of a drawback, by solar evaporation, which fits it for curing fish and on beef and pork exported, as well as fish. The bounty provisions. Much of it is proved, by the returns of the was the same in each case; it was five cents a quintal on salt makers, to be used in the fisheries, while the fisheries dried fish, five cents a barrel on pickled fish, and five on are drawing money from the treasury under the laws beef and pork. As the duty on salt was increased, the which intended to indemnify them for the duty paid on bounties and allowances were increased also. Fish and foreign salt. To this section of the Union, then, the salt salted beef and pork fared alike for the first twenty years. tax is not felt as a burthen. They fared alike till the revival of the salt tax at the comLet us proceed to the South. In this section there are mencement of the late war. Then they parted company; but few salt works, and no bounties or allowances, as there bounties and allowances were continued to the fisheries, are no fisheries. The consumers are thrown almost en-and dropped on beef and pork; and this has been the case tirely upon the foreign supply, and chiefly use the Liver-ever since. The exporters of fish are now drawing at the pool blown. The import price of this is about fifteen rate of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, cents a bushel; the weight and strength is less than that of as a reimbursement for their salt tax; while exporters of alum salt; and the tax falls heavily and directly upon the provisions draw nothing. The aggregate of the fishing people, to the whole amount of their consumption. It is bounties and allowances, actually drawn from the treasury, a heavy burthen upon the South. exceeds five millions of dollars; while the exporters of provisions, who get nothing, would have been entitled to draw a greater sum; for the export in salted provisions exceeds the value of exported fish.

The West is the last section to be viewed, and it will be found to be the true seat of the most oppressive operations of the salt tax. The domestic supply is high in price, deficient in quantity, and altogether unfit for one of Mr. B. could not quit this part of his subject, without the greatest purposes for which salt is there wanted-cur- endeavoring to fix the attention of the Senate upon the ing provisions for exportation. A foreign supply is indis-provision trade of the West. He took this trade in its pensable, and alum salt is the kind used. The import largest sense, as including the export trade of beef, pork, price of this kind, from the West Indies, is nine cents a bacon, cheese, and butter, to foreign countries, especially bushel; from Portugal, eight cents a bushel. At these the West Indies; the domestic trade to the Lower Missisprices, the West could be supplied with this salt at New sippi and the Southern States; the neighborhood trade, as Orleans, if the duty was abolished; but, in consequence of supplying the towns in the upper States, the miners in the duty, it costs thirty seven and a half cents per bushel Missouri and the Upper Mississippi, the army and the nathere, being four times the import price of the article, vy; and the various professions, which, being otherwise and seventy-five cents per bushel at Louisville and other employed, did not raise their own provisions. The amount central parts of the valley of the Mississippi. This enor- of this trade, in this comprehensive view, was prodigious, mous price, resolved into its component parts, is thus made and annually increasing, and involving in its current al

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Reduction of Duties on Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa.

[MAY 11, 1830. most the entire population of the West, either as the grow-hundred per cent. on Liverpool salt, and four hundred upon ers and makers of the provisions, the curers, exporters, or alum salt; and to this must be added, so far as relates to all consumers. The amount could scarcely be ascertained. the interior manufactories, the protection arising from transWhat was exported from New Orleans was shown to be portation, frequently equal to two or three hundred per great; but it was only a fraction of the whole trade. He cent. more. This great and excessive protection has been declared it to be entitled to the favorable consideration of enjoyed, without interruption, for the last eighteen years, Congress, and that the repeal of the salt duty was the and partially for twenty years longer. This surely is time greatest favor, if an act of justice ought to come under enough for the trial of a manufacture which requires but the name of favor, which could be rendered it, as the salt little skill or experience to carry it on. Now for the was necessary in growing the hogs and cattle, as well as results. Have the domestic manufactories produced an in preparing the beef and pork for market. A reduction adequate supply for the country? They have not; nor in the price of salt, next to a reduction in the price of half enough. The production of the last year, (1829,) as land, was the greatest blessing which the Federal Govern- shown in the returns to the Secretary of the Treasury, is ment could now confer upon the West. Mr. B. referred about five millions of bushels; the importation of foreign to the example of England, who favored her provision salt, for the same period, as shown by the custom house recurers, and permitted them to import alum salt free of du- turns, is five million nine hundred and forty-five thousand ty, for the encouragement of the provision trade, even five hundred and forty-seven bushels. This shows the when her own salt manufacturers were producing an abun- consumption to be eleven millions of bushels, of which five dant and superfluous supply of common salt. He showed are domestic. Here the failure in the essential particular that she did more; that she extended the same relief and of an adequate supply is more than one-half. In the next encouragement to the Irish; and he read from the British place, how is it in point of price? Is the domestic article statute book an act of the British Parliament, passed in furnished as cheap as the foreign? Far from it, as already 1807, entitled “ An act to encourage the export of salted shown, and still further, as can be shown. The price of beef and pork from Ireland,” which allowed a bounty of the domestic, along the coast of the Atlantic States, varies, ten pence sterling on every hundred weight of beef and at the works, from thirty-seven and a half to fifty cents; in pork so exported, in consideration of the duty paid on the the interior, the usual prices, at the works, are from thirtysalt which was used in the curing of it. He stated, that, three and a third cents to one dollar for the bushel of fifty at a later period, the duty had been entirely repealed, and pounds, which can nearly be put into a half bushel meathe Irish, in common with other British subjects, allowed sure. The prices of the foreign salt, at the import cities, a free trade with all the world, in salt; and then demanded, as shown in the custom house returns for 1829, are, for in the most emphatic manner, if the people of the West the Liverpool blown, about fifteen cents for the bushel of could not obtain from the American Congress the justice fifty-six pounds; for Turk's Island and other West India which the oppressed Irish had procured from a British salt, about nine cents; for St. Ubes and other Portugal Parliament, composed of hereditary nobles, and filled salt, about eight cents; for Spanish salt, Bay of Biscay and with representatives of rotten boroughs, and slavish retain- Gibraltar, about seven cents; from the Island of Malta, ers of the King's ministers. Having shown the enormous six cents. Leaving out the Liverpool salt, which is made amount of the tax, its unequal operation in different sec-by boiling, and, therefore, contains slack and bittern, a tions of the Union, and the superior claims of the West septic ingredient, which promotes putrefaction, and renfor its abolition, Mr. B. proceeded to examine the readers that salt unfit for curing provisions, and which is not sons for keeping it up. These grew out of the "Ameri- used in the West, and the average price of the strong, can system;" for the duty was no longer wanted for reve- pure, alum salt, made by solar evaporation, in hot climates, nue. The plea of revenue was cut off by our own con- is about eight cents to the bushel.

duct.

Here, then, is another We had voted, two years ago, to reduce the duties lamentable failure. Instead of being sold as cheap as the one-half on wines, and were now voting to reduce them foreign, the domestic salt is from four to twelve times the to a fraction on coffee, tea, and chocolate. This is proof price of alum salt. The last inquiry is as to the quality of decisive that the revenue can dispense with a part of the the domestic article. Is it as good as the foreign? This taxes. The objection, then, to the repeal of the salt du- is the most essential application of the test; and here again ty, stands upon the "American system;" and thus this sys- the failure is decisive. The domestic salt will not cure tem is presented to the people by its own warm friends provisions for exportation, (the little excepted which is and zealous champions, as reducing the moderate duties made, in the Northeast, by solar evaporation,) nor for on Champaigne wine and imperial tea, which the rich and consumption in the South, nor for long keeping at the arluxurious alone use, and leaving the enormous and une- my posts, nor for voyages with the navy. For all these qual duties upon salt, without which the farmer cannot purposes it is worthless and useless, and the provisions raise his stock or cure his provisions; without which the which are put up in it are lost, or have to be repacked, at laboring man cannot eat his dinner, nor the beggar boil a great expense, in alum salt. This fact is well known his greens! Thus this system is presented as favoring the throughout the West, where too many citizens have paid rich and luxurious, oppressing the poor and laborious! the penalty of trusting to domestic salt, to be duped or inBut let us examine into it, and see with what justice, and jured by it any longer. In proof of this, Mr. B. read a with what conformity to its own declared principles, the statement from a citizen of Indiana, Mr. J. G. Read, whose "American system" has taken the salt tax under its shel- respectability he vouched for, alleging that he had suster and protection. The principles of that system, as I tained a loss of near three hundred and fifty dollars upon understand them, and practise upon them, are to tax, a cargo of three hundred barrels of pork, at New Orleans, through the custom house, the foreign rivals of our own in the year 1827, in consequence of putting it up in doessential productions, when, by that taxation, an adequate mestic salt. The pork began to spoil as soon as it arrived supply of the same article, as good and as cheap, can be in the warm climate of the South. To save it, Mr. Read made at home. These were the principles of the system had to incur the expense of repacking in alum salt-a pro[Mr. B. said] when he was initiated, and, if they had cess, which cost him one dollar and twelve and a half cents changed since, he had not changed with them; and he ap-on each barrel, besides twelve and a half cents for reprehended a promulgation of the change would produce placing each hoop that got broke in the operation, and the a schism amongst its followers. Taking these to be the expense of the dray's hauling the pork to and from the principles of the system, let the salt tax be brought to its place of repacking. Mr. B. said that this was the case In the first place, the domestic manufacture had with one and all. They must repack, in alum salt, at New enjoyed all possible protection. The duty was near three Orleans, at the same expense that Mr. Read did, or pro

test.

MAY 11, 1830.]

Reduction of Duties on Coffee, Tea and Cocoa.

[SENATE.

cure that kind of salt beforehand, burthened as it was precedence then of tea, coffee, chocolate, and wine. It with duty, and diminished in the bushel by the tariff laws. cannot be necessary here to dilate upon the uses of salt. Surely the West cannot present this picture of imposition But, in repealing that duty in England, it was thought to the Congress, and ask in vain for the relief which the worthy of notice that salt was necessary to the health, Irish, proverbial for oppression, received from the Bri-growth, and fattening of hogs, cattle, sheep, and horses; tish Parliament. And here he submitted to the Senate, that it was a preservative of hay and clover, and restored that the American system, without a gross departure from moulded and flooded hay to its good and wholesome state, its original principles, could not cover this duty any long- and made even straw and chaff available as food for cattle. er. It has had the full benefit of that system in high du. The domestic salt makers need not speak of protection ties, imposed, for a long time, on foreign salt; it had not against alum salt. No quantity of duty will keep it out. produced an adequate supply for the country, nor half The people must have it for the provision trade; and the a supply; nor at as cheap a rate, by three hundred or one duty upon that kind of salt is a grievous burthen upon thousand per cent.; and what it did supply, so far from them, without being of the least advantage to the salt makers. being equal in quantity, could not even be used as a sub- Mr. B. said, it was an argument in favor of keeping up stitute for the great and important business of the provi- these duties, that in time of war we should have to depend sion trade. The amount of so much of that trade as went upon the home supply. He said we had no war at preto foreign countries, Mr. B. showed to be sixty-six thou-sent, nor any prospect of one, and that it was neither wise sand barrels of beef, fifty-four thousand barrels of pork, nor beneficial to anticipate, and inflict upon ourselves two millions of pounds of bacon, two millions of pounds beforehand, the calamities of that state. "Sufficient for of butter, and one million of pounds of cheese; and he the day is the evil thereof." When the war comes, we considered the supply for the army and navy, and for con- will see about the price of salt; in the mean while, the sumption in the South, to exceed the quantity exported. cheaper we get it now, the higher we shall be able to Mr. B. examined another ground of claim for the con- pay for it then. But he did not admit the argument. The tinuance of the duties, founded on the amount of capital making of salt was a plain and easy business. It required which the manufacturers had embarked in the business. no skill or experience. If a part of the works stop when They had returned this capital at upwards of three mil- the price becomes low, they will start again the day it lions of dollars; but when you come to analyze the parti- rises. If the whole were stopped now, they would all be culars of this imposing sum, two millions of it are found in full operation in the first few months of war. Besides, to be taken up with wooden vats, and their scantling roofs, many works were stopped now. On the Kenhawa, twentywhich are in a state of daily deterioration, and must rot in four furnaces, capable of making four hundred thousand a few years, whether used or not. Such items could not bushels per annum, are returned by the owners as idle. be counted as capital, unless when new, or nearly so; and On the Holston, only one well is worked, making five it is not to be presumed that any new works have been hundred bushels a day, when ten thousand could be made. erected since the problem of paying the public debt has At many other places a part of the works are stopped, been discussed and solved; and a great reduction of taxes and for the purpose of making a less quantity, and getting looked to as a consequence of that event. Another por- a higher price. If the owners thus stop their works for tion of the capital was in kettles, also a perishable item, to which the same remark extends as to the wood in vats. A third large item in the estimate of capital is a great Mr. B. said, there was no argument which could be number of wells and furnaces, left to stand idle on pur- used here, in favor of continuing this duty, which was not pose, in order to make less salt and demand higher prices used, and used in vain, in England; and many were used for it. Deducting all these items, or so much of each as there, of much real force, which cannot be used here. ought to be deducted, and it would probably turn out The American system, by name, was not impressed into that the boasted capital in these works did not exceed the service of the tax there, but its doctrines were; and the amount of one year's tax upon the people to keep he read a part of the report of the committee on salt duthem up. That tax has been shown to be, for 1829, one ties, in 1817, to prove it. It was the statement of the million two hundred thousand dollars of direct duty; mer-agent of the British salt manufacturers, Mr. William Horne, chant's profit upon that sum, at the rate of fifty per cent., who was sworn and examined as a witness. He said: “I making six hundred thousand dollars; and four hundred will commence by referring to the evidence I gave upon and fifty thousand dollars more for the loss of thirty pounds the subject of rock salt, in order to establish the presumpin every bushel: in all, two millions and a quarter of del- tion of the national importance of the salt trade, arising lars. The real capital, in all human probability, does not from the large extent of British capital employed in the reach that sum. The capital to be affected by the repeal trade, and the considerable number of persons dependant of the duty cannot be the half of it; for all the interior upon it for support. I, at the same time, stated that the works--all those in upper Pennsylvania, in Western Vir-salt trade was in a very depressed state, and that it conginia, in Ohio, in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, tinued to fall off. I think it cannot be doubted that the are beyond the reach of foreign salt, except at an advance salt trade, in common with all staple British manufactures, of from two to three hundred per cent. upon its cost. They are protected without a tariff, by locality, by distance, and by the expense of transporting foreign salt into the fair and legitimate sphere of their supply and consumption Doubtless it would be better for the consumers to buy all the works, and stop them, than to go on paying the present enormous duty, and its accumulated burthens, to keep Such was the petition of the British manufacturers. them up. But this alternative cannot be necessary. The They urged the amount of their capital, the depressed people cannot be driven to this resort. After reducing state of their business, the number of persons dependant the duties on tea, coffee, wines, and chocolate, the duty upon it for support, the duty of the Government to protect upon salt must fall. The American system cannot keep it, the necessity for a prohibitory duty on foreign salt, it up. It cannot continue to tax the first necessary of life, and the fact that they were making more than the country after untaxing its luxuries. The duty was repealed in toto, could consume. The ministry backed them with a call for under the administration of Mr. Jefferson. The probable the continuance of the revenue, one million five hundred extinction of the public debt enabled the Government at thousand pounds sterling, derived from the salt tax; and that time to dispense with certain taxes, and salt took with a threat to lay that amount upon something else, if it

their private advantage, they must not complain if the interest of the people should require more of them to stop.

is entitled to the protection of Government; and the British manufacturers of salt consider that, in common with other manufacturers of this country, they are entitled to such protection, in particular from a competition at home with foreign manufacturers; and, in consequence, they hope to see a prohibitory duty on foreign salt.'

SENATE.]

Impeachment of James H. Peck.--Light-house Bill, &c.

Proclamation was then made that James H. Peck appear and answer the article of impeachment, and he accordingly appeared, attended by Mr. Wirt, as his counsel; and being seated within the bar,

[MAY 12, 1830. was taken off of salt. All would not do. Mr. Calcraft, with his proceedings thereon; that is, he had served the and his friends, appealed to the rights and interests of the same on James H. Peck, on Thursday last, in the city of people, as overruling considerations in questions of taxa- Baltimore, and had left with him a copy thereof; to the tion. They denounced the tax itself as little less than im-truth of which he was sworn by the Secretary. piety, and an attack upon the goodness and wisdom of God, who had filled the bowels of the earth, and the waves of the sea, with salt for the use and blessing of man, and to whom it was denied, its use clogged and fettered, by odious and abominable taxes. They demanded the whole repeal; and when the ministry and the manufacturers, overpowered by the voice of the people, offered to give up three-fourths of the tax, they bravely resisted the proposition, stood out for total repeal, and carried it. Mr. PRESIDENT: I appear, in obedience to a summons Mr. B. could not doubt a like result here, and he looked from this honorable Court, to answer an article of impeachforward, with infinite satisfaction, to the era of a free trade ment exhibited against me by the honorable the House of in salt. The first effect of such a trade would be, to re- Representatives; and I have a motion to make, which I reduce the price of alum salt, at the import cities, to eight quest may be done by my counsel.

The VICE PRESIDENT informed Judge Peck that the
Court was ready to receive his answer.
JUDGE PEČK rose, and addressed the Senate as fol-
lows:

or nine cents a bushel. The second effect would be, a The VICE PRESIDENT having signified the willing. return to the measured bushel, by getting rid of the tariffness of the Court to receive the motion,

regulation, which substituted weight for measure, and Mr. WIRT rose, and, having read reasons therefor, subreduced eighty-four pounds to fifty. The third effect mitted the following motion in behalf of Judge Peck: would be, to establish a great trade, carried on by barter, 1. That a reasonable time may be allowed me to prebetween the inhabitants of the United States and the peo-pare my answer and plea; and, for this purpose, I ask’unple of the countries which produce alum salt, to the infi-til the 25th day of the present month.

Mr. WEBSTER then submitted the following order: Ordered, That James H. Peck file his answer and plea with the Secretary of the Senate, to the article of inpeachment exhibited against him by the House of Repre sentatives, on or before the second Monday of the next session of Congress.

nite advantage and comfort of both parties. He examined 2. That, after my answer and plea shall be filed, process the operation of this barter at New Orleans. He said, this for witnesses may be awarded to me, and a reasonable pure and superior salt, made entirely by solar evaporation, time may be allowed to collect my witnesses and proofs came from countries which were deficient in the articles from the State of Missouri. of food, in which the West abounded. It came from the West Indies, from the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and from places in the Mediterranean; all of which are at this time consumers of American provisions, and take from us beef, pork, bacon, rice, corn, corn meal, flour, potatoes, &c. Their salt costs them almost nothing. It is made on the sea beach by the power of the sun, with little care and Ordered, That the Secretary notify the foregoing order aid from man. It is brought to the United States as bal-to the House of Representatives, and to James H. Peck. last, costing nothing for the transportation across the sea. Mr. BIBB moved to amend the order, by striking out The duty alone prevents it from coming to the United States the "second Monday of the next session of Congress," in the most unbounded quantity. Remove the duty, and and inserting the 25th day of the present month, which the trade would be prodigious. A bushel of corn is worth was agreed to; and the order was then made as amended. more than a sack of salt to the half-starved people to whom On motion by Mr. CHAMBERS, the Court adjourned

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1830.
LIGHT-HOUSE BILL, &c.

the sea and the sun give as much of this salt as they will to meet on Tuesday, the 25th instant, at 12 o'clock. rake up and pack away. The levee at New Orleans would be covered-the warehouses would be crammed with salt; the barter trade would become extensive and universal; a bushel of corn, or of potatoes, a few pounds of butter, or a few pounds of beef or pork, would purchase a sack The bill "making appropriations for building lightof salt; the steamboats would bring it up for a trifle; and houses, light-boats, beacons, and monuments, placing all the upper States of the Great Valley, where salt is so buoys, and for improving harbors and directing surveys, scarce, so dear, and so indispensable for rearing stock and was taken up in Committee of the Whole, as amended en curing provisions, in addition to all its obvious uses, would motion by Mr. WOODBURY; and that it be recommitted be cheaply and abundantly supplied with that article. Mr. to the Committee on Commerce, on Mr. GRUNDY'S moB. concluded with saying, that, next to the reduction of tion to recommit the bill, with instructions to class the the price of public lands, and the free use of the earth for several subjects embraced in it, and report a bill on each. labor and cultivation, he considered the abolition of the salt tax, and a free trade in foreign salt, as the greatest blessing which the Federal Government could now bestow upon the people of the West.

The remaining amendments reported by the committee being agreed to, the bill was further amended; and, the amendments being concurred in, were ordered to be engrossed, and the bill read a third time as amended.

IMPEACHMENT OF JAMES H. PECK.

Mr. HAYNE called for a division of the question, and it was accordingly taken on recommitting the bill, and negatived by the following vote: Yeas 16, nays 30.

This motion was advocated by Messrs. GRUNDY, HAYNE, TYLER, BENTON, and SMITH, of South Carolina, on the ground that the subjects embraced in the bill were incongruous in their character, and ought to be considered in separate bills, in order that gentlemen might not be forced either to vote for objects or measures which they did not approve, or, by such union, to reject such s Mr. WOODBURY thought the contrary; that it was a Mr. SMITH, of Maryland, and Mr. CHAMBERS, who perfect congruity in uniting in one bill all the subjects were absent on the organization of the court, being pre-named in this. Light-houses, &c. were necessary to facil sent, the VICE PRESIDENT administered the usual oath tate and protect commerce; surveys were necessary pre to them.

At 12 o'clock the Senate resolved itself into a High they might approve. Court of Impeachment.

The Sergeant-at-Arms was then directed to make proclamation in the usual form, to keep silence; after which, The Sergeant-at-Arms returned the writ of summons,

paratory to appropriations for improving the navigation of rivers, &c.; and navigation indispensable to commerce, &c. Mr. W. also thought, that if the motion prevailed, the bill could not be passed during the present session, &c.

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This motion was supported by Messrs. BARNARD, CHAMBERS, MARKS, WEBSTER, and CLAYTON, and objected to by Messrs. WOODBURY, SMITH, of Maryland, and HAYNE.

Mr. SMITH, of Maryland, moved to amend the proposed amendment, so that the sum appropriated should be a grant to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company, to aid them in improving the navigation of the creek; which was rejected.

[SENATE.

Messrs. WEBSTER, SILSBEE, HOLMES, SAN- taken up by the Government is destined, in the end, to FORD, and FOOT, also opposed the recommitment. yield a handsome dividend; that this road runs through the Mr. BARNARD moved to amend the amendment of most fertile district of country in the world, and is the the Committee of Commerce, which appropriates three great thoroughfare through the State of Kentucky. Let hundred dollars for surveying Back creek, in Maryland, me remark, that it is by no means the least surprising cirto ascertain the expense of improving its navigation, by cumstance connected with it, that, when its advantages inserting, in place of it, "forty thousand dollars for the are so decidedly great, and the promised dividend on the improvement of the navigation of Back creek." stock so large, the State of Kentucky itself, if its citizens are reluctant to subscribe, should not take up the stock. Why permit this Government, already possessed of such abundant sources of revenue, to engross this also? Why suffer it, from this time and for ever, to levy a tax for the benefit of other portions of the confederacy, on the good people of Kentucky? Let the truth be spoken. The benefits of the contemplated subscription are destined to arise to certain individuals, who have been incorporated by the Legislature of that State to construct this road. Their fortunes are to be advanced, and they are earnestly urging us to aid them in this enterprise. Now, sir, I desire Senators to reflect upon the consequences of passing this bill. In all our legislation, we should act upon an enlarged principle-the principle of equal justice. If we subscribe to this undertaking, where shall we stop? What company shall we deny, or what work shall we refuse to aid? Will you aid all works of equal extent-every road of sixty miles in length? If we do not, shall we not be justly chargeable with injustice? But, sir, upon what principle is it that we shall limit our subscriptions to roads of precisely the same extent with this? Why not, if they [On the 13th, 14th, and 15th of May, there was much shall fall a little short of this? I ask of gentlemen to show business done in Senate, and a number of bills were pass-me the limit of their principle. Pass this bill, [said Mr. T.] ed. Among other bills under consideration was that au- and no man can set bounds to the applications which will thorizing a subscription of stock in the Maysville, Wash-be made to us at the next session. We shall have a perington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Road. The pub- fect jumble of all manner of schemes and plans; national lishers have, in their possession, only the following remarks by Mr. TYLER.]

Mr. WOODBURY then moved to strike out "forty thousand dollars," and insert "twenty-five thousand dollars."

Mr. HAYNE called for a division; and the question to strike out was lost by the following vote: Yeas 21, nays 25. The amendment proposed by Mr. BARNARD was then agreed to by the following vote: Yeas 26, nays 21.

Sundry other amendments having been made to the bill, it was reported to the Senate; and the amendments were ordered to be engrossed, and the bill read a third time as amended.

We

When

and local; public and private; in lawyers' phrase, a perfect hochpot. Can any Government bear such an operaMr. T. stated that he did not rise to enter into a consti- tion? Can any community exist in peace under such a tutional argument on the bill now under consideration. system? It will terminate precisely as has done another He should wait for more favorable auspices, before he magnificent scheme. Four or five years ago, our ingeventured to detain the Senate by such an argument. The nious politicians found the power in the constitution to imperiod might be near at hand, when the principles of the prove harbors, and to make our rivers navigable. They constitution would once more be invoked, and the true began with roadsteads for the navy; and in what has it terdemocratic party be called upon to rally around the stand- minated? Let our observation this session illustrate. ard which was unfurled in times long since gone by. have got now to surveying creeks which have not water Whenever the day should arrive in which the country enough to keep at work a common grist mill. The apwould be so far relieved from the unhappy spell in which propriation made but the other day, for the survey of Mouit had been bound, as to listen with attention to an exposi- sen river, in the State of Maine, in the very face, too, of tion of this subject, on constitutional grounds, he would an explanation of its actual condition, made by the chairnot be wanting in his duty. I was [said Mr. T.] in that man of the Committee of Commerce, has left me no room Congress which was the first to enter gravely into the dis- to hope that any opposition to the bill now under considercussion of the constitutional power of this Government to ation will be successful. It is, nevertheless, my duty, as a make roads and canals. I then attentively weighed all member of the committee who reported this bill, to state that was urged by the advocates of the system-if system to the Senate the objections which I have to it. that may be called, which is none--and my decision was the subject was before the committee, it was attempted to against them. Every subsequent reflection has confirmed show that it was but the part of a scheme, more enlarged the opinion then expressed; and the experience of the and more extensive. It was said to be but a link in a great last six years has satisfied me, that, in its exercise, all that road hereafter to be finished by this Government from is dear and should be considered sacred in our institutions is Zanesville, in Ohio, to a point opposite to Maysville, on put to hazard. Experience is the parent of true wisdom, and the Ohio river; and from Lexington to Nashville; and from the lights which she has furnished upon this subject ought thence on to Florence, in Alabama. On this ground, it to be bright enough to conduct our footsteps back to the claimed nationality of character. The chain was broken path from which we have strayed. Can any man say in by the interposition of the Ohio river; and what was to what this system is to end? Formerly, it was held to be be done to supply it, I do not know. A bridge would national. I have no such word in my political vocabulary. scarcely have been thought of, and a ferry, founded by A nation of twenty-four nations, is an idea which I cannot authority of this Government, might subject to too severe realize. A confederacy may embrace many nations; but a test this road-making power. Now, sir, it is the easiest by what process twenty-four can be converted into one, I thing imaginable to make a road a national road. Every am still to learn. Yes, sir, formerly it was contended that road in the country readily becomes so. Each is connectthe road-making powers could only be exerted over na-ed with every other, whether by a straight line or othertional objects, but now it is gravely contended that every wise, is not material. The angle at which the county thing is national, and that the bounty of this Government road passing by my door intersects the principal road leadmay be exerted in aiding to construct a road but sixty miles ing from this city to Richmond, and from thence to Huntslong. And what do we hear? Why, that the stock thus ville, in Alabama, whether it be a right angle or an acute VOL. VI.-55

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