The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1Webster, Daniel
History
The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1
Webster, Daniel
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
The political motives alluded to caused the bill to be made as
acceptable as possible to Pennsylvania and the other Middle States, and
as unfavorable as possible to the leading interests of New England. The
depression of the woollen manufactures had originally caused the
revision of the tariff at this session. A heavy duty on the raw material
was one of the features of the bill. But this was represented as due to
the agricultural interest. The East, although it had now become
eminently a manufacturing region, was still the seat of an active
commerce, and largely concerned in the fisheries. The duty on molasses,
a great article of consumption with the mariners and fishermen of the
East, both in its natural form and that of cheap spirits, was doubled;
but this, it was said, was required for the benefit of the grain-growers
of the Middle States. Other provisions of this kind were introduced into
the bill, in all cases with the assistance of the votes of its
opponents, given in such a way as to render the bill as unpalatable as
possible to the Northeastern manufacturers. Mr. Webster addressed the
Senate, while the bill was before that body, exposing the objectionable
features to which we have alluded. Believing, however, that the great
article of woollens required the protection given it by the bill, and
regarding the general system of protection as the established policy of
the country and of the government, and feeling that the capital which
had been invited into manufactures by former acts of legislation was now
entitled to be sustained against the glut of foreign markets, fraudulent
invoices, and the competition of foreign labor working at starvation
wages, he gave his vote for the bill, and has ever since supported the
policy of moderate protection. He has been accused of inconsistency in
this respect; and by none more earnestly than by the friends of Mr.
Calhoun, who was one of those influential statesmen of the South by
whom, in the Fourteenth Congress, the foundation of a protective tariff
was laid on the corner-stone of the square-yard duty on domestic cotton
fabrics. But he has been sustained by the great majority of his
constituents and of the people of the Northern, Middle, and Northwestern
States; and should the prospects of success be fulfilled with which
manufactures have been attempted at the South, there is little doubt
that she will at length perceive that her own interest would be promoted
by upholding the same policy.
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