Congress had disregarded the protest of the South Carolina Legislature of the previous February. It was well known that the committee on Manufactures in the House was favorable to the maintenance of the existing duties. It seemed, therefore, to Mr. McDuffie, and those who thought with him, both natural and necessary that the committee of Ways and Means should claim their constitutional prerogative, and make an effort to get the ear of Congress to their representations. Consequently, on February 5th, 1830, Mr. McDuffie reported a tariff bill from his committee, without having had the subject specifically referred to them by the House. The bill provided for a moderate reduction of the tariff all around, but still left a duty of thirty-three and one-third per centum _ad valorem_ upon woollen fabrics. The interest attaching to this proposition lies in the fact that it contains substantially the terms upon which the South Carolinians were willing to compromise the tariff question. It shows them to have been still moderate tariff men, rather than out and out free-traders. To the unprejudiced mind of the present day it certainly appears to have been an offer which merited some consideration, but, after a single reading, it was ordered to lie on the table, from which it was never taken up. {175} [Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1830.] Meanwhile the committee on Manufactures were very deliberately maturing a measure. It was reported to the House early in April, and taken up for consideration on the 15th. It was nothing more than an administrative measure for the purpose of securing a stricter execution of the existing tariff. [Sidenote: McDuffie's Amendment.] Mr. McDuffie made another effort to move the House to consider a reduction of duties, in the form of an amendment to this bill. He offered such an amendment, which provided for a return to the duties imposed before 1824 upon woollens, cottons, iron, hemp, etc. [Sidenote: McDuffie's doctrine that the producers of exports pay finally the duties on the imports.] It was in support of this amendment that he made his famous argument of April 29th, 1830, in which he developed, for the first time, the doctrine in regard to the final payment of the duties which furnished the economic basis of nullification. That doctrine was that the producers of the exports, which are exchanged in the foreign markets for the imports, pay, finally, the duty upon the imports. His course of reasoning in the establishment of this doctrine was as follows: He reduced all trade ultimately to barter between producers, and then declared it to be self-evident that when a producer of exports should be obliged to pay a duty of twenty-five per centum upon the imports, which he had received in pay for his exports, before he could bring them into the country of his residence, he had received finally twenty-five per centum less for his exports than he would have received had he not been compelled to pay any duty upon his imports.