“Sir, if the union of the States shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, the historian who records these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description. I do sincerely believe that this government cannot exist a quarter of a century under such a system of legislation. Sir, when I consider that by a single act like the present so large an amount of money
may be transferred annually from one part of the community to another—when I consider the disguise of disinterested patriotism under which the basest and most profligate ambition may perpetuate such an act of injustice and political prostitution—I cannot hesitate to pronounce this very system of indirect bounties the most stupendous instrument of corruption ever placed in the hands of public functionaries. Do we not perceive at this very moment the extraordinary and melancholy spectacle of less than one hundred thousand capitalists by means of this
unhallowed combination, exercising an absolute and despotic control over the opinions often millions of citizens ?“
John Rowan, Senator from Kentucky, on the same subject.
“I am not opposed to the tariff as a system of revenue, honestly devoted to the objects and purposes of revenue; but when perverted by the ambition of political aspirants, and the secret influence of individual cupidity, to purposes of individual and sectional ascendency, I cannot be seduced by the captivating names or terms, however attractive, to lend it my individual
support. * * * * I am one of the organs here of a State that, by the tariff of 1824, has been chained to the car of New-England manufacturers—a State that has been from that time, and is now, groaning under the pressure of that unequal and unjust measure —a measure from the pressure of which, owing to the prevailing illusions through the United States, she now saw no hope of escape
by a speeey return to correct principles. * * * * The hemp, iron, and distilled spirits of the West will, like the woolens of the eastern States, be encouraged to the extent of the tax indirectly imposed by this bill upon those who buy and consume them. To this tax upon the labor of the consumers, my individual opinion is opposed.”
"The tariff bill of 1824 was carried after a protracted and sharp debate of ten weeks, by a vote of 107 to 102 in the the House of Representatives, and by 25 to 21 in the Senate. No
southern State voted for it, and every member from the South protested against the measure as a robbery of the southern States. It was a northern measure against the southern interests. It divided the country into two unequal parts by which the stronger fleeced the weaker of its earnings, by demanding tribute in the shape of duties upon all articles of its consumption."
Gov. Horatio Seymour, April 1865, New York.