The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 429

                                
April, 1844.
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
429
28th Cong 1st Sess.
The Tariff—Mr. Steenrod.
H. of Reps.
the taxes. In this, they differed from the whigs.
In the next place, our old national debt was liquida-
ted. In this they differed from the whigs. But I
propose to indicate the amount of taxes repealed du-
ring the two past democratic administrations'* To
do this, I must again advert to tabular statements.
A statement taken from tables prepared at the Treasury
Department, showing what amount of duties have
been remitted by the several acts passed in 1830, 1832,
and 1833, modifying the act of 1828. These acts,
passed since 1828, diminished the rate of duties, and
increased the list of free articles.
Year ending
31st Dec.
Duties taken of!' under
the acts of 1830, 1832,
and 1833.
Payments into the
treasury.
1830
$185,476 69
$21,922,391 38
1831
3,728,725 -31
24,224,441 77
1832 .
- 7,304,566 28
28,465,237 24
1833
19,789,590 03
29,032,508 91
1834
24,465,105 27
16,214,957 15
1835
27,053,041 53
19,391.310 09
18S6
34,603,1S8 32
23,409,940 53
1837
30,991.853 47
11,169 290 39
1838
22,417,032 39
16,158,800 36
Aggregate amount of duties taken off in nine
years, $170,539,379 09.
Ji statement from tables prepared at the Treasury De-
partment) showing the amount of duties remitted on
the ten following articles, from 1834 to 1838 inclu-
sive.
■ $6,721,075 89
• 7,260,63.) 52
- 15,635,600 81
• 7,618,329 59
- 25,890,471 09
• 6,089,076 68
- 22,671,188 65
• 2,092,061 46
821,38,1 98
- 3,404,693 67
$94,204,719 34
On woollens -
Worsted stuff's ♦
Silks •
Linen • * * ♦
Teas from China - *
Brown sugar -
Coffee -
Bar iron rolled •
Bar iron manufactured, or otherwise •
Salt 
On ten articles the amount of
The first table shows that $17,0,539,379 09 of
taxes were remitted under the administrations of
General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren. These com-
putations were made in a reliable quarter. They
show how much the democracy relieved the people
from taxation. The second table shows the reduc-
tion of taxes on a few leading articles, and deserves
to be carefully examined by the consumers. What
do these facts indicate? That the whig party is a
tax-raising and debt'contracting party. What else do
they prove? That the democratic party is a debt-pay-
ing and tax-reducing party. But some clever whig
remarks, what about the Van Buren debt? Why,
sir, if Mr. Van Buren, with a law reducing the taxes
periodically, left a small debt, owing to the unprece-
dented disasters which had for a season so impeded
commerce and the sales of the public lands, as se-
riously to impair the revenue, what are we to think
of the t(tx-la\ji)\g whig party for tripling the debt
from the 3d of March, 1841, to 1st December,
1843?
It has been gravely alleged, that if you reduce
the duties you will be sure to reduce the revenue.
Now, sir, before I take my seat, I will only add a
few words on this point. In support of this opin-
ion, we are pointed to the effect of the compromise
bill passed in 1833 in reducing revenue. But this is
susceptible, I think, of a most satisfactory explana-
tion, and will, upon examination, be found not in
the least to weaken the position, that you may re-
duce duties and yet augment the revenue. This,
we maintain, will result from an increase in the
commerce of the country.
Having so frequently taxed the courtesy of the
committee by the introduction of statistical state-
ments, I regret to be forced, in conclusion, to allude
to another; yet financial questions cannot well be
discussed without them- Permit me, then, to invite
attention to the following table, prepared at the
Treasury Department:
Value of importsfrom 1821 to 1842.
Average annual value1 of free goods from lt/21 to 1S32 inclu-
sive, say twelve \ ears • $11,583,372
Average animal value of free goods from 1832
to 1842 inclusive, say for ten years
Increase equal to 445 per cent. •
63,119,335
51,535,963
Goods pajingduty, viz:
Average annual value of goods paying duty
from 1821 to 1932, say for twelve years « 71,967,7 <9
Average annual value of goads paying duty
from 1833 to 1842, during ten years - - 69,537,060
Decrease equal to 3.4 per cent. • - - 2,450,719
Note.—The acts of 1832 and 1833 admitted free ol duty a
large amount of goods, which, previous to the passage of
those acts, were subject to duty.
Treasury Department,
Register's Office, April 29,1844.
This table shows, in the twelve years during the
period of high tariffs, from 1821 to 1832, only
$11,583,372 worth of goods free of duty were im-
ported annually; while from 1833 to 1842, during
the time of the reductions under the compromise bill,
the enormous amount of $63,119,335 worth of
goods free of duty were imported annually. This
fact will suffice to account for any deficiency of
revenue which may have occurred during the opera-
tion of the compromise bill. But it will be seen
that, since 1833, the average value of the dutiable
goods has also been diminished. These causes,
combined, certainly are sufficient to account for the
deficiency. So, therefore, there is no force in the
objection urged, that reducing the duties must of ne-
cessity diminish the revenue. But, on the contrary,
if time permitted, I could adduce innumerable in-
stances where the reduction in the impost greatly
augmented the revenue.
SPEECH OF MR. STEENROD.
OF VIRGINIA,
In the House of Representatives, April 27, 1844—
On the tariff.
Mr. Chairman: The government requires the
aid of legislation to restore it to its republican char-
acter and destination. The expenditures of govern-
ment still remain unreduced; and all the profligacy
of which the people have so long complained, as yet
is unarrested; and to swell the complaints of the
past, the treasury is not only drained to emptiness,
but to an unexampled indebtedness for a period of
eace. Though a stupendous system of taxation
has been fixed on the people, still the revenues of
the government are inadequate to meet its expendi-
ture, and it is driven to the extremity of resorting to
loans and credit to meet its appropriations.
But this is not all. Unwise legislation has not
only reached every department of the government,
but all the pursuits of business, capital, and labor.
If we examine the returns from the custom-houses,
we see the imports are greatly diminished; by a table
furnished in Mr. Wright's speech, the comparison
between imports of. certain articles of the single
year of 1843, and those of the year 1842, are shown:
The imports of wool for 1843, were less than for 1842,
by - - - - - - ~3 per cent.
The imports of woollens - - - ■ off "
" cottons - - - - 68 "
silks - • • -til
" iron rolled - - - w> "
" " not rolled - - •
" " pigs - - - - 78 "
" leather and manufactui es ol - ')■>
" glass - • - - 7-2 "
" liemp, cordage, and duck - "
" cotton bagging - - - 66 "
" sugar and siiup • - - 4S "
'• paper - - ■ - 10 "
This discloses the fact that, though our population
and production have greatly augmented, our com-
merce is declining, if not languishing. It is true the
dividends of the manufacturers have swollen to an
enormous amoust, and this may indicate that they
are flourishing; but the wages of the operative and
laborer are reduced. And it is true that the crops
of the farmer are extraordinary; still they must rot
in their granaries, or be sold at prices greatly re-
duced, while all that he consumes is greatly appre-
ciated in price.
The tax payer and citizen will compare this con-
dition of the country with that of the days of the Jack-
son democracy, with feelings of unmingled regret,
if not of unmeasured condemnation. Then tne
treasury was full to overflowing; the taxation of
the people annually reduced; the old federal debt
extinguished; one entire half of our commerce free;
the pursuits of labor rendered freer; the farmer
and tradesman reaping the full fruits of their
toil to a great extent, unharmed and unembar-
rassed by federal legislation. In connexion with
this, allow me to state a fact, which, I believe,
is not generally known to the people—that if
the tariff had not been adjusted by the compromise
act, and thus given assurance to the country of a
settled policy on this vexed question, General Jack-
son would, at that session of Congress, in a special,
or iji his next annual message, have recommended
the reduction of the tariff to an exclusive revenue
duty.
This was not only the policy of the administra-
tion of General Jackson, but of Mr. Van Buren—to
reduce the tariff to the revenue point, and to bring
the expenditures of the government within its in-
come; and I aver, from the documents|before me, had
it pleased the country to have continued that admin-
istration in power, with the then declining revenue,
soon to be reduced to 20 per cent, on imports, all
the then existing liabilities of the go vernment would
have been discharged, the government now free from
debt, and an ample revenue sufficient to meet all its
expenditures. It is true the reduction of the reve-
nue in June and July of five millions of dollars, left
a deficiency to this amount; but to supply it, it was
recommended by Mr. Woodbury, the then Secreta-
ry of the Treasury, to impose a duty on luxuries,
within the terms of the compromise act, which
would have been amply sufficient to supply it. The
omission of this necessary modification of the then
existing tarifflaw, to supply the deficiency occasion-
ed by this reduction, created the debt of five millions
of dollars, which the whigs attributed to the extrav-
agance of Mr. Van Buren's administration. Calum-
niated and reviled as has been this pure and excel-
lent statesman, these facts ought to go far to con-
vince the country of the great injustice done to hint
by this imputation. A man, sir, that
"Hath "boi-no his faculties so meek, hath bf pn
So cloar in Ins great office, thdt bis virtues
Will plead, likevangels, trumpet tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking
I say this much in reply to the historical sketch
which the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Kenne-
dy] favored us.
This policy of the administration of General
Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, under which the
country prospered, and which the people so long
and so often approved, has been reversed—reversed
at the late extra session of the whig Congress. The
hundred days1 session—that, while the farmer was
planting and maturing his crop of corn, expended
five millions and a half of dollars, gave to the States
the only permanent revenue of the government, and
then increased the taxes on the people, in the form
of a tariff, to meet the deficiency; passed a loan bill
to borrow twelve millions of dollars—without crea-
ting a fund to pay either principal or interest; then
huckstered the bonds of the government from bank-
er to banker, with a credit so reduced that even the
Wall-street stockjobbers could not venture to specu-
late in them. This is the policy, the great state
quackery that has had the chief agency in bringing
the government to its present unenviable condition;
legislating the government out of its accustomed
revenues, and then resorting to loans and credit to
meet its expenditures.
It has been the usage of this, government to re-
ceive a great portion of its revenues by duties on
imports; but this taxing power of the government,
by whig legislation, has been converted to another
purpose than revenue to support the government—
a distinct and opposite end, to promote home manu-
factures.
At the extra session, they passed a law which
was called the little tariff; at the long session the
existing law was enacted, which they called
the big tariff-—thus imposing such high duties as pre-
cluded the government from receiving its accustom-
ed duties from imports. Afraid to resort to direct
taxation to sustain this system, they have been com-
pelled to resort to loans and credit until they haie
run the government in debt to the amount of twenty-
one millions of dollars in a little more than two
years.
Now, the country has suffered enough by this par-
tial and favorite system of legislation.^ It appears to me
but yesterday when I saw an association of capital-
ists conspiring against the government, and rallying
under the money feature of the constitution, seeking
to become allied with it, to enforce it to receive the
paper of the bankers as constitutional money, to
o-jve the revenues of the government—the taxes paid
Ey the people for the support of the government—to
the banks to bank on, to increase the dividends of
the stockholders, and to furnish accommodation to
their customers.
These arrogant demands were pressed with all the
appliances that ingenuity could devise, or reckless-
ness dare to execute. The trade..and commerce of
the country were stricken down; their dependants,
with their fortunes, credit, and reputation, were all