392 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Dec 
misapprehension of the nature of the struggle in 
’42, and calculated to prepare the way for further 
injustice to the wool grower; in short, to be just 
such as a defeated advocate of the now exploded 
maximum principle, would pen in the last resort, to 
secure the next best object to the advocates of free 
trade in wool—to wit: a low, indiscriminate duty on 
wool, so high, as nearly to exclude the coarse hairy 
wools which we do not grow T , yet so low, as to 
admit the w 7 hole mass of rival wools, at a cost here 
which will enable them to control the price of do¬ 
mestic wool in the home market; too low for the 
purposes of revenue, incidental or direct protection, 
and far below what the farmers of the country have 
a right to demand in return for the payment of 
16-20ths of the millions raised by the tariff to support 
the government. It is not to be winked out of sight 
that, 82- lOOths of the whole population of the United 
States are agriculturists, and that no class consume 
more dutiable articles, according to their numbers 
and the amount of their individual business, than 
they. They are the principal consumers of all the 
protected products of our manufacturers, yet no class 
on account of the great superabundance of the pro¬ 
ducts of our agriculture, receive so litte encourage¬ 
ment or aid from the tariff. Then let Congress do 
all it can for them in a tariff in this vital matter 
of wool, and go even beyond the revenue standard, 
(even the most scrupulous for justice’s sake, need 
not hesitate,) they will still labor at the shortest end 
of the yoke and receive a mere pittance from the 
general government compared to the aggregate 
amount of their contributions to its support. 
Titrius says—it was the attempt to discriminate 
between the different kinds of wool to be applied to 
different objects, which produced the greatest mis¬ 
chief to the wool grower in 1842. 
Now, I say there was no such attempt or issue in the 
passage of the tariff of 1842, as Titrius believes, and 
those who believe it do not and did not understand the 
game the advocates of free trade in wool were play¬ 
ing, under the guise of the maximum principle, adopt¬ 
ed in the tariff of 1832—which admitted all wool 
costing abroad eight cents or less per pound, duty 
free. So little was then known on the subject out 
of the circle of importers and manufacturers, that it 
was not even imagined in Congress or out of it, that 
this tariff would virtually establish free trade in 
wool, but when I established the fact in 1841, that 
fourteen and a half millions out of a little rising fif¬ 
teen million pounds of wool, were imported duty free, 
supplanting every grade of domestic wool in our own 
markets, the wool-growers were alarmed, the agri¬ 
cultural press came to the rescue, a few members of 
Congress caught the glimmer of the new light, a 
struggle arose between those who wanted free trade 
in wool and the wool-grow T ers. The whole issue 
was made up on the maximum, which drew no line 
of discrimination between the kinds of wool and the 
fabrics into which it might be manufactured, but be¬ 
tween free trade and protection . So great was the 
influence of adverse interests, and so small the in¬ 
formation on the subject in Congress, that all the 
bills, when presented to Congress, adopted a maxi¬ 
mum, high enough to establish virtually, free trade 
in wool. However, the Committee of Ways and 
Means, at the last moment, imbibed a little light, 
and'were induced to report an amendment to their 
Dill, subjecting coarse wool coming under their max- 
mum to five per cent. duty. The word coarse, 
which was not in the tariff of 1832, with the provisos 
in the bill, it was contended by the advocates of free 
trade in wool, would be an abundant security to the 
wool-growers, while they contended the word coarse 
and the proviso, would be inoperative in the con 
struction of the act, and the sheep husbandry in the 
United States would progress from bad to worse, 
under the proposed tariff, all of which has been too 
sadly realized. 
Thus the whole struggle in 1842, was for substan¬ 
tial free trade on the one side, and just and equal 
protection on the other. The free trade in wool 
prevailed, losing no ground in the struggle save the 
trifling amendment of the Ways and Means. Well, 
the tariff of 1842 went into operation. From the inge¬ 
nius phraseology of the bill, the word coarse proves 
to be all a humbug, and without meaning —over 
29-30ths of all the wool imported, came in subject to 
five per cent, duty—about one-eighth as much as the 
duty on woollens. The importations rose up by 
1844 to nearly 25,000,000 pounds, and in 1845, to 
rising 28,000,000 pounds. 
Now I would ask what there is in all this that has 
even the semblance of a discrimination between dif¬ 
ferent kinds of wool to be applied to different ob¬ 
jects? Does the issue on the maximum, for its rejec¬ 
tion, reduction, or the substitution of an ad valo¬ 
rem duty as high on wool as woollens, establish the 
fact? No such thing. The whole issue was free 
trade or not. Certainly the maximum could make 
no such discrimination, when all the South Ameri¬ 
can wool could be purchased abroad from one to four 
cents per pound less than the maximum of seven 
cents. It is true, that the friends of the wool-grower 
in Congress, with a faith founded in darkness,thought 
if they could reduce the maximum, they could sub¬ 
ject more rival wools to the higher rate of duty es¬ 
tablished in the bill, but they soon found that they 
were completely over-reached, and that there was 
no fact in commerce better established, than that the 
coarse , hairy wools of Crimea, Odessa, Calcutta, 
&c., cost the same abroad as the fine and beautiful 
wools of South America, east of the Andes. 
This fact was established beyond contradiction, 
in my last; having then reliable information that a 
project for a new tariff had been made at Newport, 
R. I., by certain eminent politicians, about twelve 
months previous, designed to be substituted for the 
present tariff, at the first convenient opportunity, 
by which free trade in wool was again to be estab¬ 
lished under the guise of the maximum principle; I 
set forth this fact distinctly and beyond doubt, so 
that all cpuld see that a maximum could have no 
office in a tariff on wool, save its old office of hum¬ 
bug, deception and ruin. 
That I made a discrimination between rival wools 
which supplant our own, and the coarse hair wools, 
which do not, is true, in order to show that the max¬ 
imum cannot be applied to either, as a rule of dis¬ 
crimination between coarse and fine wools, and also, 
that unless such a discrimination as this is made in 
a tariff, it will be found to be impracticable, as it 
regards both the revenue and incidental or direct 
protection. 
Titrius, would not subject fine and coarse woollens 
to the same rate of duty—-say $2 per yard. This 
would exclude the coarse fabrics, costing $1.50 and 
under per yard, (the article most wanted,) and be 
no restriction on the importation of broad-cloth 
worth $5 or $10 per yard, and would defeat the pur¬ 
poses of revenue. This is precisely the case with 
the present indiscriminate ad valorem of 30 per cent, 
on all wool. If it is a fact, I believe it does not 
admit of a doubt, that the coarse hairy Crimea and 
the Buenos Ayres cost abroad the same, (though the 
Buenos Ayres will produce three times as much as the 
Crimea,) then both pay the same amount of duty 
per pound, which is as absurd as to subject a $10 and 
