THE MORRILL TARIFF.
The Committee on Agriculture returned the joint resolution H. R. 21--see page 93 of these Reports--recommending its passage.
Mr. ANDERSON objected to the passage of the resolution as unwise and unjust. It was an echo of a speech made by a leader of the Democratic party, who complained that the West is ground down by the ex- page: 162[View Page 162] actions of New England to enrich its manufactures, till we are made hewers of wood and drawers of waters to them, and that when it could not be endured he would speak as a sectional man. He also essayed to show that the interests of the West were intimately connected with the South in stead of the East. He thought few of the members had read the Morrill tariff, or understood its provisions, yet they claim that the agricultural population of the West bears the greater portion of the taxes under the tariff law. Indiana is an agricultural State, and has a fertile soil. Massachusetts has a sterile soil, and is fitted for manufactures. Yet Massachusetts has an agricultural population, too, and they are crushed quite as much as the tanners of Indiana, for they are consumers, also. We must consider the whole question. Our revenue can be raised by tariffs, direct taxation, or indirect taxation, on the principle of the internal revenue, law. Instead of a direct tax, we have the tariff law and internal revenue Saw. It was unwise to stigmatize one part of the system and overlook the other. What is not raised by the tariff must be raised by the internal revenue law. Had the capitalists of the East owned the Administration, they would have compelled them to levy a direct tax, which would come on the farmers directly. The State of Indiana, as an agricultural State, would have been heavily taxed. Indiana has a population of over 100,000 more than Massachusetts, and an excess of white male adults of nearly that amount. As the direct tax is levied according to representation. Indiana would pay more than Massachusetts But under the income tax Massachusetts pays far more than Indiana as we have few capitalists, and very few whose incomes are over $600 a year; while Massachusetts has a large amount of capital in few hands, which has been accumulating for one hundred years. Massachusetts manufactures largely. There is a large amount of traffic, and consequently a much greater number of contracts are made there than here. Every contract must be stamped, and the amount of duties paid there is much larger than is paid in this State. Undoubtedly Massachusetts will pay five or six times more revenue for stamps than Indiana. As to bank stock in the two States, it was in Indiana, in round figures. $4,000,000, in Massachusetts, $64,000,000. These banks pay heavily in stamp duties on checks, certificates, etc., and will, under the new financial act of Congress, about to pass, pay a tax of three per cent. on their circulation. Take into consideration the relative investments in insurance stocks, and the proportion is about $1,000 here to $1,000,000 there. For every dollar of revenue from the tax on the income from these investments the Government will receive about $1 here to $10 there.--Your farmers have no license to pay; the traffickers of Massachusetts, her dealers, her manufacturers, must take out a license as the first step to business. Their manufacturers pay a tax of three per cent. on all they manufacture, and on some manufactures it amounts to far more than three per cent. It may be said that they get it back from consumers by adding it to the price of the manufactures. They are compelled to go into the market, and run their own risks. Suppose a tax of three per cent. was levied on produce, do you think farmers could compel their customers to pay the three per cent, additional ? Massachusetts has also a large amount of capital invested in commerce, which involves a large amount of commercial transactions, adding to the revenue, under the income law. Let me refer a moment to the tariff. How does it affect the East? If the tariff does prevent the importation of foreign goods, then it cripples her commercial enterprise, and ruins a large amount of her industry. It strikes as heavily on the commerce of the East as on the production of the West. What would become of her merchant marine in such a case? Take the Internal Revenue Law, and see how it bears on all professions, manufactures and commerce, and you will find that for every dollar paid by the people of Indiana, ten dollars are paid by Massachusetts. He thought, including the income tax, the proportion would be the same. Suppose the tariff does bear heavier on the West than on the East, the internal revenue tax bears ten times more on the East than the West. While he was not disposed to misstate the opinions expressed by other gentlemen, he would, nevertheless, say, if you by harangues or resolutions, could embitter the people of the West against the East, and make them believe that they are borne down by its oppression; if you wish to get up a Northwestern Confederacy, the surest and best way to do it is to till the people of the West with haired of their brothers of the East. If you wish to cause separation of the Union. you can pursue no better course than to pass resolutions of this character, and make speeches denouncing the East. Hence we should hesitate to pass resolutions calculated to excite hostility against New England.
Mr. PUETT said that the gentleman (Mr. Anderson) did not seem to understand the first principles of a tariff. What was a tariff? He would quote Silas Wright and John Quincy Adams. They had declared it to be a tax on the country. The farmers, the planting men--that class that produced everything--bore all the burdens. They bore the burdens of the Government, and would continue to do it so long is we had a Government, the gentleman's talk about a Northwestern Confederacy to the contrary notwithstanding page: 163[View Page 163] By the Morrill tariff the agricultural interest of the whole country was ground to the dust. The' Morrill tariff was nor, for revenue, but for protection. The million paid by Massachusetts was paid by us, and we had to pay a half a million to pay that. He quoted from statistics to show that imports had fallen off since the passage the Morrill tariff some $68,000,000. They cold not have passed the Morrill tariff even through the present depraved Congress if it had not been tacked on to the revenue bill. We know we of the West were burdened, and that our money goes into the pockets of the Yankee manufacturers. If that money went to sustain the Government, cheerfully would the West pay it. It everything, discriminations were made in favor of New England and against the great West. Even in the matter of ammunition needed by our armies all over the country, the Chief of Ordnance (Gen. Ripley) had refused to purchase of the Indiana Arsenal a better article at one-third the price he was paying to contractors in the East. He eloquently exhorted gentlemen to throw aside their party predilections and stand by their whole country, the Constitution and the Union. If they did not do it--if the politicians did not do it--the people, very speedily, too, would take the matter in hand, and, telling them to get out of the way, save this their country and their Government themselves.
Mr. CASON thought that on its face the resolution might not seem to mean much, but its tendency should be looked to. If we have imported $68,000,000 less of foreign goods, we have just so far failed to protect the pauper labor of Manchester. You must choose whether you will support the labor of England or New England. Whenever New England has been stigmatized there has been applause here. This shows a bitter hate against New England, which forbids a fair examination of the question. The Morrill tariff brings in a revenue of $39,000,000, an expense of about $1 to each person in the United States, and yet you claim to be ground down by it. The Great West don't pay all this tax. It is absurd to talk about being crushed by the tariff The farmers of the west use but a small portion of the imports, and are not the chief consumers. How, then, can the Western farmers be borne down? The Arsenal had been dragged in. What State in the East owns an Arsenal? Not one. The eastern Arsenals belong to the United States, and are worked by it.
Messrs. PUETT and HARNEY contended that Gen. Ripley was disposed to discriminate against the West.
Mr. CASON said if the West proposed to repudiate the tariff it gave New England an excuse for refusing to pay her tax under the internal revenue law.
