Carolina Watchman

              t4.r„i..-~tv.-o dolors p annum i advance .\ vertisement 3 inserted at 1 per square lor he first . j 25 cents lor each subsequent insertion co*1 ur .,,- i 25 per cent in her ____________ address of the hon w.m if haywood jr to the people of north carolina i have never appeared before the pub lic bv myself or otherwise to write down an accusation against me but have hith erto chosen to bear unjust rebuke in si lence and rely opon time and my manner of life to consign to oblivion the wbisper ings of the envious and the calumnies of the ma/ignant 1 do not ali'ect to conceal that a departure from this role gives me much pain ; and i am persuaded that if many of my friends did not think that it is a duty i owe to the people not to re main silent under the recent censure of phrenzied partisans 1 should leave it as i far a concerns me to my kown character land the self-denying act which has pro voked it to vindicate the patriotism and purity of my motives ; reposing confident ly ii on the discernment and judgment of an intelligent public in view of the sim ple facts as they occurred ; and not doubt ing that so soon as the occasion had pass ed by and there was no longer a neces sity for overawing others who it might have been supposed were more timid in heir purpose and no chance to deceive the people at the north carolina elections bv unscrupulous libels against me my as sailants would cease from their dirty work and had men who measure the i motives of llie virtuous by a standard of morals which vice has erected in their own bosoms would go hunting after some fresh victim to gratify their ignoble mal ice but 1 come before you at this time to speak of myself not of others and to defend my own faithfulness not to expose their designs ; and j think myself happy that 1 have the honest people of north carolina to judge my cause 1 invoke no | sympathy iask no compassion and i thank j god 1 need them not but with the proud consciousness of one who has dared to do his duty as a servant of the republic a midst dangers and trials such as 1 trust are not to grow common in our govern ment i stand berore you to lay claim to the confidence respect and approbation of all good men more especially of those belonging to ihe democratic party i feel and know tins day and i will prove even to my enemies that in my station as ase ■ nator and in retiring from it 1 incurred no guilt ! deceived no one — i betrayed no parly — i made no sacrifice of your in terests and no surrender of your rights — none at all directly nor indirectly and they who have charged the contrary with ail who from any motive personal or po litical have given to it their aid and coun tenance did " hear false witness it is true that on the 25th july a few moments before the vote was expected to have been taken on the new tariff bill of 1846 improperly called mckay's bill i resigned my seat as a senator in con gress into the hands of north carolina to whom it belonged believing that it was my duty to do it sooner than cast my vote against my conscience for a law that i could not approve and knowing that it was my perfect right to do it and that i would be but exercising that right in pre cise accordance with the last written doc trine of the legislature and of the party who elected me in this only have i of fended and in manly sincerity but with that plainness ol speech which the hum bles man m the community will be able to understand for himself 1 proceed to lay before you my explanation the subject of the tariff and the system of laws by which taxes are imposed and collected for the use of the general gov ernment throughout the union is one of deep importance but of much intricacy and great difficulty in its judicious ar rangement such after taking my seat in the senate of the united states in de cember 1843 i for one felt what any man when he first goes into congress directly from private life will be apt to experience and that was a lack of necessary know ledge and information upon it with an ambition to learn my duty as a legislator for this great republic and a fixed deter mination to pursue it afterwards i imme diately gave my whole mind to the study and consideration of this tariff system well knowing that upon it depended in a pood degree the chief operations in com merce agriculture and manufactures in the other slates as well as ours during the lii-t si ssion of the last congress and after having devoted nearly all my time lor some months to this study i hoped 1 had myself qualified and my political as sociates believed me tit to be consulted with in our united efforts to arrange a ta nff with justice to all sections and with , entire safety to ihe business prosperity harmony peace and independence ofthe union to admit that this could not be done was to declare that the union can not be preserved and the cause of free government had failed the democratic senators in particular concurring as we did then and do now with a few exceptions at ihe north in a sentiment opposition to the tariff of 184 desired to see it changed that act was wheved to be extreme in its protective character and therefore unequal and un satisfactory to large sections of the union a-'d our aim was to modify it by the near est possible approach to that happy mean between the extreme opinions of such as demand a total abandonment of all pro motion on one hand and of those who in 5|st upon protection as a primary object 0tl he other i have no doubt that tins ls the only foundation upon which wise nd just legislation can be based when in tru s rea"-v connict*ns are to be affect by the action of the general govern v t with each other and , th the chairman of the committee of d}s and means ofthe house of kepre the carolina watchman bruner & james . ) _,_•.__». t " keer a check upon all yo.r editors 4 proprietors } is safe ( new serlest rr/lers do this axd llbertt { .„„.„„„ _ gen i harrison ( nu mrer 19 of volume iii salisbury n c , friday september4 1846 sentatives mr mckay were frequently lield as to the best mode of altering and reforming the tariff of 1842 the more eminent men ofthe democratic party in the senate and leading statesmen from different sections of the union in congress took part in the deliberations and investi gations which preceded and accompanied the formation of what was then called and known as •• mckay's bill and report viz in march 1844 in the councils whence that bill proceeded i had the honor to be admitted as an humble and unpretending participator so that i knew and it cannot he denied that quite all the democratic senators from the south and west and very nearly every one from the north and east assented to or acquiesced in it it formed a subject of congratulation i re remember amongst the members of the party from all sections at that time 18 14 that the opinions and views of democrats in the national councils had been thus brought to harmonize in what was thought to be a reasonable prudent practical mea sure of legislation upon this subject which seemed likely to put at rest and settle the tariff dispute unfortunately it did not pass the house of representatives : 1 will not stop to state the cause but notwith standing its temporary defeat in that body the democratic party once put themselves before the people of the union upon that bill as a common platform and it was promulgated as their proposed scheme of reforming the tariff act ol 1842 " mc kay's report of 1844 was published and sent forth as the true and authentic inter pretation of their views in regard to the change we were afterwards to insist upon so i understood it at the time and ever since and so have i constantly declared the bill was named after its author and advocate mr mckay a statesman of north carolina — a southern man and a democrat my own opinions in its favor wire freely expressed in all my intercourse with you and they are not unknown in any quarter the democratic press in north carolina without exception ap plauded it the democratic party zeal ously approved of it throughout our limits if there was a single one of them who did not i am yet to learn the fact hundreds if not thousands of the other party in our state gave their approving voice in its fa vor our elections in 1844 and 1815 all of them were conducted upon that basis so far as the tariff question entered into them at all every intelligent man in the nation knows the fact that the fall elec tions of 1844 and those in the spring of 1845 throughout the united states for members to ihe present congress were carried on if not upon the same basis with a knowledge of that bill and report the north saw in it a pledge of the south and west that we did not mean to break down and oppress the labor and industry of the north and east the south saw in it a reasonable concession to their de mand for practical free trade the peo ple every where saw in it the hope for moderate legislation and the prospect of a permanent arrangement of a question that had been agitating the nation for a quarter of a century and if your memo ry still serves you with a recollection of any ofthe speeches of our candidates for the last legislature or the present con gress made in north carolina only a year ago j beg to know whether it was not uniformly proclaimed that all true demo crats were going in favor of " mckay's bill of 1844 bear in mind that the mckay bill of 1814 and the mckay bill of 1846 agree in nothing but the name as 1 will show you hereafter and what let me ask was the result of all this in the north as well as in the south and west the elections to the pre sent congress ended favorably to the de mocratic party a democratic majority of more than sixty were returned to the house of representatives the same par ty held a majority in the senate and a democratic president nominated after the •• mckay bill of 184 4 had been framed and approved by the party was elected by the votes of states in the north as well as the south ; a southern and a western president whom we could not have elec ted without the votes of northern states of course 1 cannot undertake to allirm as a fact that ihe northern states which vo ted lor the democratic party were induced to do it by mckay's bill and report of 184 l but this i know and will say that it was put forth as a political peace-ofler ing upon the tariff and that the northern people at once rallied to the support of the party in numbers largely beyond those had heretofore supported it : and that it was expected by us when that offering was made that it would conciliate the northern democrats ; and i have no doubt that it enlisted the support of thousands who would not have sustained the party with out it now then 1 put it to the con science of the people of north carolina who 1 know love all theircountry — north south east and west — whether under such circumstances i was bound to vio late my sense of duty and contrary alike to this party-pledge and to my own sober judgment as a senator to assent to an act which violated out and out the " mckay bill of 1844 when there was no public emergency to require it and no national exigency to excuse it and that when i did most confidently believe that the new ta riff act ofthe present congress was in it self unwise and lull of mischief to the republic ? was it my duty to you or to the democratic party of north carolina to have done that ? and had 1 no right to resign and retire from it 1 was i bound to hold on to my office and put up the pretended excuse that the democrats of north carolina had changed their minds and repudiated " mckay's bill of 1844 for a new and different measure in 1846 or that the people desired me to pass the latter when forsooth i did not know the fact to be so and in my heart i did not be lieve it ? so far from its being the case i more than doubt whether thousands of you have not taken it for granted or been led to believe down to this day that the " mckay bill of 18 14 was the same thing that is called so in 1840 whereas they are as different as light is from darkness no my constituents never required such things of me believe rne i do not mean to bring into question the course of other democratic senators who condemned the act and yet gave it their vote it is my right to state that there were not a few of them who did lhat neither do i mean by this to assail my friend mr mckay far from it they are my friends personally and politically and in taking a different view of their duty ihey did me no wrong and in defending my own conduct i intend not to arraign theirs whilst i have pursued the light of my conscience they have fol lowed theirs in questions of conscience it must be conceded that gonisthe judge and every man must stand or fall accord ing as each believes for himself so that not unfrequently there are cases where men in the same circumstances may act differently and yet both be guiltless rut what i have said upon tbe history and purpose ofthe mckay bill of 1841 did not form all of my objection to the newtariffof 18 10 improperly named mc kay's bill ; and which i shall for the sake of discrimination more properly call the " experimental tariff my opinions shall be laid before you without disguise and you shall see whe ther taken in connexion with an unneces sary and improper abandonment of the real mckay bill of 1844 they do not show that in my hostility to the experimental tariff i was faithful to you and my coun try and true to myself and my party fortunately for me those opinions so far as they looked forward to its ultimate consequences on the harmony of the party or ihe welfare of the republic i am no longer under the necessity of supporting i by labored arguments for good or e i vil the law has passed if it should be repealed or modified at the next session that will be of itself a complete vindica tion of my opposition to it at the present if it should be permitted to remain in i force in the form that i was required to vote upon it then time will soon deter mine whether my opinion of it was right ! or wrong i abide the result without fear yet if i know myself without a wish to see evil come of it merely for the sake of claiming hereafter the merit of political sagacity for my resistance to it these then were my opinions as they are now : first our country is involved in an ex pensive war and the wisest among you cannot foresee its close we have a large army invading mexico and a large navy oil her coasts along the pacific ocean and in the gulf of mexico the sum already appropriated by congress for the govern ment expenditures of the fiscal year ex ceeds fifty millions of dollars will the experimental tariff raise revenue suliicieut to " pay as we go v certainly not con gress knew that and therefore authorized a loan of ten millions at the very time we were passing this tariff and the first act of the next session will probably be one for ten millions more ! will it produce revenue enough to pay one half of the ap propriations ? i am quite sure it will not its advocates did not assert that it will do much more wherefore if this experi ment works as well as its warmest friends have predicted the government will fall in debt twenty-five millions this fiscal year so long as the war lasts and for such a period of time after it as the war expenses continue it will be the same thing rut if the experiment works as illy as its more violent opponents have said of it why then it will hardly go at all i think the truth lies between them it will work but it will work badly and work you deeply in debt ; and if it is ad hered to " without alteration the public debt will be increased not much short of of thirty millions the first year and i can sec no way to prevent its yearly increase except by a resort to direct taxes direct taxes ought to be our very last resort — public debt is an evil that 1 abhor more than ever since i was a member of congress ; and therefore it was the con clusion of my mind that this tariff experi ment ought not to be tried and certainly not at this particular time the acts of a congress which went to diminish the revenue but to increase the expenditures did not seem to me to be consistent with prudence in any government more espe cially in a time of war the tariff sys tem according to my judgment was a most unfit subject for party experiments ; and at the time of a yearly expenditure of fifty millions of dollars and of a foreign war such experiments amounted to party rashness if the war should end soon still the government here we knew expected to terminate it by a treaty for peace and a new territory viz california no hon est country would take the territory with out paying the owner for it if we would mexico cannot yield it upon any other terms hence whether we were to have peace or war with mexico we needed much more money to carry on the gov ernment when the plainest rules of a rithmetic and common sense thus compell ed me to withhold my support from a ta riff experiment to be made now at the expense of the nation's credit how could i hesitate ? second the tariff of 1842 ought to have been modified but not by an act which reduced the duties as early as the 1st december in all great alterations of the tariff di minishing duties the reductions ought to be made upon reasonable notice to the people whose property and business will be affected by them in that case there may be inconvenience to some but it does not bring ruin down upon so may innocent j people not giving time infant factories are destroyed by the hand of legislation and the older and more mature establish ments are compelled to diminish their ope rations forthwith and consequentlv to dis charge a number of their laborers and re duce the wages of all the laborers suf fer more than the owners because they are less able to bear it the sudden loss of work will be to many of them and their families a loss of food and raiment and that which the law-maker is commanded to pay for — his daily bread — he would be thus rudely taking by law from the workingman of his country and the ex perimental tariff act was the more ob jectionable inasmach as many of our , countrymen — the northern laborers who ■ are to suffer under it — will be put out of employment in the beginning of the win ter when,other employments will be ob tained with the great difficulty ; and at the north the poor without labor and wa ges encounter a degree of suffering in that inclement season which we have no just conception of at the south you must see it before you can fully appreciate it al so a sudden alteration of the tariff must : of necessity disturb the home market of j our manufacturers coal-diggers and me chanics and involve hundreds and thou sands in losses to some ruin to others and suffering to many even a bad tariff law then should not be repealed so as to fall down too hastily when its gradual abrogation would create less inconvenience to the government and its sudden change may oppress the poor : or do injustice to any section the gov ernment ought to have compassion on all the people and particularly upon the la boring classes the manufacturers at the north are not all " abbott lawrences whose fortune has been the theme of so many tariff speeches the compromise tariff act under gen jackson in 1833 re duced the duties gradually and periodical ly for nine years it gave nine years no tice this experimental tariff will re duce all the duties upon only four months notice ! the latter was harsh cruel un just legislation ; harsh to the wealthy cru el to the laborer and unjust to both ; and the general welfare did not require it third the independent treasury of itself a great change ; the warehouseing act another ; and the experimental tariff the greatest of them all will when taken together work an entire revolution of our financial system one at a time they might have been introduced more safely some of them wisely but by being so nearly united as they will be in the time of their commencement it is calculated to excite apprehension and alarm to put them into sinultaneous operation was in deed a political movement of party too violent and too potent for good they will affect all the business of the people most injuriously ; and with a government expenditure of fifty millions and a revenue under twenty millions the government it self may be crushed under their combined operation to attempt it when the nation was at war abroad and the government was in the money market or soon expect ed there as a borrower at home clearly appeared to my mind to be unwisely jeo parding public credit and private confi dence revolutions are seldom reforms and certainly reforms need not always be revolution one must reasonably fear that without a miracle such strong mea sures acting with their combined power a gainst the existing order of things in the country may create a revulsion in trade pecuniary distress hard times popular ex citements and sectional agitations prece ding another contest for the presidency and do nobody any good but a tew politi cal agitators and rich speculators i thought they would go very far towards producing an overthrow ofthe democratic party if they did not entirely accomplish it these consequences were too natural not to be apprehended ; and the last men tioned result was openly predicted by some and probably anticipated by others of my own friends who yet voted for the experimental tariff bill without approving of it unless it should be repealed or materially modified its consequences now belong to the developments ofthe future ; so i need not illustrate the grounds of my conviction by minuter statements let time test its correctness fourth in none of the tariff acts of the united states in former years was the in dustryofour own country burdened bv ' discriminations made against home man > ufactures their policy was to build up < and not to destroy to protect and not to i oppress not so the experimental tariff i and is it not a mistake to suppose that the republican people of north carolina ' were at any time hostile to those acts merely because they were protective ;~ our hostility was aimed at the extent of the thing not the thing itself at extreme protection not protection per se with here and there as individual exception — for republicans in those days were allow ed to differ — i boldly affirm that this was republican doctrine of our state : and the people will know it to be true when i re mind them that it was precisely the point of our dispute with the nullilicrs they were against protection out and out .- we the jackson republican party of north carolina in particular went for inciden tal protection moderate protection by a judicious tariff they were for declar ing the tariif of 1s.s and 1s3 unconsti tional and nullifying it because it protec ted manufactures we thought it was un just because the protection was extreme but not unconstitutional and that the union must be preserved what there publican party of north carolina thought then 1 thought and spoke and wrote and coming down to more recent events let me say that mckay's bill of ls-ii was a tariff of incidental protection which you and i and all the democrats in congress from north carolina approved and sus tained and the people of our party in north carolina now here opposed last year and the press of the party defended up to the inauguration and afterwards and even down to the day of the report from the present secretary of the treasury care ful study longer experience and closer examination have confirmed me in the faith of those times fortified as it was by the authority of the administrations of ii ashingtdn and jefferson and madison and monroe and jackson all southern re publicans and southern presidents is consistency treason ? it may be a mis fortune to me that i was unable to change with the times but it would be a crime to deny my faith to avoid misrepresenta tion i give you the words of those wise and eminent and patriotic men mr haywood here makes copious ex tracts from the writings of president wasji ington jeffi rson madison monroe and jackson to show that their views of the tariff coincided with those advanced by mr ii now the experimental tariff as i inter pret it fundamentally violated this doc trine it discriminated but it did so a gainstour domestic labor and in that way and to that extent it made war upon the vital interests of the north and pray what inducements were offered to north carolina by this experiment that her sen ators should help to carry on the unnatu ral conflict ? what but the naked desire for an apparent party unity where ihere was really no party concord for n caro lina had no local or state interest which will be served or elevated by it none whatever the limits of this address will not al low of illustrations by a tedious detail of enumerated articles i reserve that for a more suitable occasion only remarking for the present that if any should be dis ingenuous enough to deny this character istic of the new tariff no one who regards his reputation will ventore to contradict the fact that the experimental tariff does not discriminate infacor of american man ufactures and not to discriminate in their favor moderately and reasonably by a live and let live law of love amongst brethren of a common country is the same thing in principle though not iu degree as to discriminate against them verily it appeared to me that its passage would be substituting the theories of yesterday learned in the law office for the experi ence of fifty years of our own government and the practice of all civilized nations for the sake of perpetrating an experi ment upon the people of the i . states fifth the last objection 1 shall trouble you with is to the new principle that all " duties are to be laid ad valorem it is not the least remarkable circumstance connected with the passage of the act that this new ad valorem article in the democratic creed was supported by the sanction of no distinguished name but henry clay's ; and mr clay's friends say that even he has been misrepresented to furnish the authority another not unimportant circumstance is that the people ol my state have been commanded to dishonor me as one not true to the doctrine of my party tarifl ot " ad valorem duties and therefore treach erous to them when 1 put it to your con science that there are thousands and tens of thousands of good north carolina de mocrats who so far from having adopted it in their political creed did never so much as hear of it until long since my election to the senate ! ret each one an swer for himself didyouever understand it before ? in sincerity i declare that until after my election to the senate 1 did not and i presume you did not rut i think i understand it now my countrymen and i venture to guessthattbe more you know ol it and the longer it shall be tried the less you will like it but let me tell you whrft it is it is to lay duties or taxes upon goods imported from foreign countries according 0 the va lue of the goods at the market from whence they come — tbe law fixing ihe per cent and tbe collector of it ascertaining the foreign value of whatever is taxed viz tbe sum ofthe tax — for which he i.-i not responsible to you but to the treasury 3epartment and a specific duty is the aine tax imposed upon the same article — he la>c itself however distinguishing the alues by establishing the particular sum if taxation and leaving nothing for the rollcctor to do but to weigh or measure hc quantity wherein if he be guiltv of fraud he may probably be convicted or if disposed to oppress the merchant he can be prevented in short w here the tax is specific the collector only weighs or measures the quantity ; where it is ad valo rem he not only measures or weighs the quantity but likewise determines upon his own judgment the foreign value of the things imported the uniform rule as approved by your government has been heretofore that of making all the du ties specific which can be made so and let the others be ad valorem : but to re duce the list of ad valorem duties from time to time by adding to the list of specific the experimental tariff condemns and re pudiates this policy altogether and pre scribes a new one of having all the duties ad valorem and none of them specific — > with this explanation you can have no difficulty in comprehending my objections to the new principle of the experimental tariff it was a maxim of the revolution that " representation and taxation should go together now this is a great principle of liberty never to be despised ; and the abrogation of it cannot be necessary to the interest of the republic rut it means nothing unless it creates the duty of lay ing taxes by the law and not by the offi cers who collect it ; so that the citizen who reads the law may a far as practi cable see in it what it taxes him : officers too whom the people have no agency in appointing and cannpt remove — officers who in assessing values exercise their own discretion and whose individual judg ment in this country as to tbe market value of property in all foreign lands can not be successfully impeached because the witnesses to do it live abroad and can not be got here ; and if they could it would still be almost impo>.."bl to con vict the officer of inti nlional falsehood it must be proved that he was wrong and knew it too is not this new doctrine then more than a slight departure from this maxim of the republic .' shall it be approved upon the notion that this great principle of a representative democracy has become impracticable ' hall we sanction the pretence that the people's re presentatives will cheat them in adopting the specific duties and assume at the same time that custom-house olliceis will be more scrupulous and more just to you in fixing the values under a system of ad va lorem duties ' ought such a departure from a great and fundamental doctrine of representative government to be tolera . ted much less engrafted permanently into the laws of a free people without unavoi dable necessity and sanctified as a part of our democratic faith without notice to the people a step or two further and wc shall be carried to a point wheie con gress can do nothing but declare the ag gregate revenues which may be levied lor the government and leave the treasury department to coiled them as may seem best to its officers and according to its rules i come now to show that what the ex perimental tariff makes the rule of taxa tion tbe fathers ofthe republic made the exception what they declared was a fruitful mother of frauds it has adopted as the only parent of our revenues ! mr haywood again quotes in support of his views from official papers emana ting from the administrations of ii askimg ton jefferson madison and monroe sus tained by the authority of ale audi r ham ilton albert gallatin maunder j dal las ami william u crawford these opinions of the great and emi nent men o/'otir country were n2ver con troverted so far as we know until the present time ; and upon what principle of patriotism or of democracy was j expect ed to refuse to them the homage of my confidence and support ? what should have induced me to forego the conclu ion ot my own judgment fortified by such authority and confirmed by the ex perience of the government for half a century ? in all ray conferences with se nators no better rea-on was given to me tor it than that the bill would destroy the tariff of 1842 but the remedy was as bad if not worse than the disease and the operation seemed to me ahno>t as un wise as to " cut off the head for a cure ol the toothache i have now explained to you the or igin and reminded you of the character of mckay's bill of 1844 i have intimated to you the nature of those party not to say those moral obligations which were contracted antecedent to the elections ot 1-11 and 1 have told you how they were imposed upon me as one of your senators in my best attempts to sustain the demo cratic party bv harmonizing the country genernllv upon a distracting conflict ot focal interests i have also shown you how the tariff bill proposed at this session was altogether a different one and every wav objectionable in its details and in its principles and in the time <>: its operation and 1 might have added in the manner it was ur-cd upon th s . ite and how ut terh impossible it was with me on account of all these things to vote for the bill with out amendment even along with other democratic senators with our mouths craved our judgment unconvinced and ourdehberations forestalled upon a ques tion which i always thought to be a na