1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



571 



Extracts from Governor McDuffie's Message to the Legislature 

 of South Carolina. 



PROTECTING DUTIES — SLAVERY ABOLITION. 



The magnitude of the burthen imposed upon 

 the states which produce the great staples of" ex- 

 portation, by that compound scheme of taxation 

 and prohibition, artfully denominated the protect- 

 ing system, may now be estimated, in some sort, j 

 by the high state of agricultural and commercial 

 prosperily which has followed the late adjustment ' 

 of the federal tariff. By that measure of compro- 

 mise, the duties upon many articles which we im- 

 port from the manufacturing nations of Europe, | 

 were entirely repealed, upon others greatly and ! 

 immediately reduced, and upon the entire class of 

 protected articles a gradual and progressive reduc- | 

 tion was provided, until they shall reach 20 per ! 

 cent, in the year 1842, and after that the lowest \ 

 rate that will furnish a revenue sufficient for the j 

 wants of the federal government, upon an eco- I 

 nomical scale of administration. Such are briefly I 

 the terms of that covenant of peace, which re- j 

 stored for a time the long lost harmony of the con- I 

 federacy, and to which the faith of the contract- 

 ing parties is solemnly pledged. And although it 

 came short of conceding all that we had a strict 

 right to demand, the benefits we have derived from 

 it are great and manifest. 



Every impost upon foreign merchandzie ope- 

 rates botli as a tax, and as a restriction upon com- 

 merce. However, in this two-fold aspect of 

 the subject, we may distribute the burthen of the 

 tax, the burthen of the restriction falls exclusively 

 upon the exports which constitute the exchanges 

 of commerce. Hence the unjust and unequal 

 operation of prohibitive duties on the exporting 

 States, and hence, in a great degree, the enhance- 

 ment of the price of their great agricultural staple, 

 since the reduction of the duties. The degree in 

 which this measure has contributed to produce 

 that enhancement, will be made manifest by refer- 

 ence to a few statistical facts disclosed by the official 

 statements of our foreign commerce, by the se- 

 cretary of the federal treasury. 



During the fiscal year ending the 30th of Sep- 

 tember, 1834, the importation of merchandize ex- 

 empted from duty, amounted to the enormous sum 

 of sixty-eight millions of dollars; fifty millions 

 more than in any year previous to the recent en- 

 largements of the list of free articles, and nineteen 

 millions more than the whole amount, of cotton 

 exported from this country during the same year. 

 Of this unexampled amount, about thirty millions 

 came from the manufacturing nations of Europe, 

 which consume our cotton, thus furnishing the 

 means of a direct, untaxed and profitable exchange 

 for our invaluable staple, equal to nearly two- 

 thirds of the estimated value of the whole export 

 of that staple. If to this we add six millions for 

 the import of teas from China, which are now to 

 a great, extent virtually exchanged for our cotton, 

 by means of an intermediate exchange for British 

 manufactures suitable to the China market, the 

 cause will be at once explained, of that sudden 

 and seemingly unaccountable increase of the fo- 

 reign demand for our cotton, which has exerted so 

 propitious an influence upon its price, and by con- 

 sequence upon the prosperity of the southern 

 states. The extent of the demand for our raw 

 cotton by the manufacturing nations of Europe, is 

 limited only by that of our demand for their manu- 



factures; and how much this has been increased 

 by the recent adjustment of the duties upon fo- 

 reign imports, is clearly shown by reference to au- 

 thentic documents. It is in this view of the sub- 

 ject, that duties upon foreign imports impair the 

 value of domestic exports, and that the repeal or 

 reduction of those duties produces a corresponding 

 enhancement of that value. 



A free and unrestricted exchange of our agri- 

 cultural staples for such foreign productions as we 

 require for consumption in the United States, is 

 the essential basis of the prosperity of the staple- 

 mowing portion of this confederacy; and whether 

 these foreign productions consist of such articles 

 as are manufactured in this country or not, is a 

 less important consideration, than that they come 

 from the countries that consume our staples, or 

 from others in exchange for those staples. Thia 

 was the basis of the late compromise with the fed- 

 eral government, in which the southern states con- 

 sented that the duties on the class of protected ar- 

 ticles should be gradually and progressively redu- 

 ced to the revenue standard, on condition that they 

 should be forthwith repealed or reduced to a nom- 

 inal rate, on olher articles, furnishing a beneficial 

 foreign exchange for our exports. And I confi- 

 dently trust that in the liberal spirit and with the 

 liberal principle of this compromise, when the con- 

 gress of eighteen hundred and forty-two shall 

 come to perform the delicate and responsible duty 

 of reducing the tariff of* federal duties to such a 

 revenue scale as will barely supply the funds re- 

 quisite for an economical administration of the fed- 

 eral government, it will be. found practicable so to 

 reduce and arrange the duties, as to relieve the 

 planting states to a much greater extent, without 

 materially affecting the interests of the manufac- 

 turing states, and at the same time to withdraw 

 from the vaults of the federal treasury, that pro- 

 lific source of corruption, a large surplus revenue. 

 * * # # # 



Since your last adjournment, the public mind, 

 throughout the slave-holding stales, has been in- 

 tensely, indignantly, and justly excited, by the 

 wanton, officious and incendiary proceedings of 

 certain societies and persons, in some of the non- 

 slave-holding states, who have been actively em- 

 ployed in attempting to circulate among us, pamph- 

 lets, papers and pictorial representations of the 

 most offensive and inflammatory character, and 

 eminently calculated to seduce our slaves from 

 their fidelity, and excite them to insurrection and 

 massacre. These wicked monsters and deluded 

 fanatics, overlooking the numerous objects in their 

 own vicinity who have a moral, if not a legal 

 claim upon their charitable regard, run abroad, in 

 the expansion of their hypocritical benevolence, 

 muffled up in the saintly mantle of christian meek- 

 I ness, to fulfil the fiend-like errand of mingling the 

 [ blood of the master and the slave, to whose fate 

 they are equally indifferent, with the smouldering 

 ruins of our peaceful dwellings. No principle of 

 ; human action so utterly baffles all human calcula- 

 I tion, as that species of fanatical enthusiasm, which 

 is made up of envy and ambition, assuming the 

 guise of' religious zeal, and acting upon the known 

 prejudices, religious or political, of an ignorant 

 j multitude. Under the influence of this species of 

 ivoluntary madness, nothing is sacred that stands 

 in the' way of its purposes. Like all other reji- 

 i gioue impostures, it has power to consecrate every 



