Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)United States. Congress
History
Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)
United States. Congress
Law -- United States; United States -- Politics and government
The gentleman says that, if produce be offered for sale, on condition
that the embargo be raised, it will bring a higher price than if on a
certainty that the embargo is to be continued. No doubt, sir, when the
embargo is taken off, a momentary spur will be given to exportation;
but how long will it continue? It will last but a very few weeks.
Produce will soon be reduced to its proper level in the market. Take
flour, for instance, the principal article raised for exportation in
the gentleman's district and mine. It would rise, on a removal of
the embargo, to ten or twelve dollars; and how long would that price
last? It would be a thing of a day, and to the people who live in our
districts of no sort of consequence; it would be of no benefit but to
those who have flour at the market; to the merchants who have bought
it up at a low price. Before the honest farmer can bring his produce
to market, the great price will be all over; and though no embargo
affects it, will be down to its present price, of four or five dollars;
so that, although a removal of the embargo would reduce the price
of produce at first, I cannot see how gentlemen would make that an
argument for taking off the embargo. If the gentleman can show that the
price will continue, and that we can traffic without dishonor, then,
sir, would I cordially join hands with him to take off the embargo.
But the gentleman says, that the pressure is so very great that some
of the States have passed laws for suspending executions. I know not
what has been done in other States on this subject, nor what has been
done in my own. If the gentleman has any information on the subject,
I should like to hear it. A bill was before the House of Delegates
for that purpose, but I did trust in God that it would be unanimously
rejected. That such a law would pass in Maryland I never had an idea,
because it is totally unnecessary. There are fewer men confined in jail
for debt on this day than there ever were before for sixteen years that
I have been in the practice of the law in that State. No man has gone
to jail but those who, to use an emphatic expression, have _broken into
jail_, who were too idle to work to pay their debts; who would get a
friend to put them into jail, if they could get no other; and who stay
there awhile, and then come out new men. This being the case, there can
be no reason for shutting the courts of justice there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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