Its advocates proposed to meet the failure of the system
of revenue, not by encouraging importations, but by internal taxes
and excises on the manufactured goods protected by the impost.
Additional revenue would be secured by higher duties on sugar,
molasses, coffee, and salt. The bill increased ad valorem duties by
an amount varying from twenty-five to sixty-six per cent,
additional. For woolen and cotton manufactures the rate of
additional duty was about one-third; on hemp, an important product
in Kentucky, about two-thirds. Duty on forged iron bars was
increased from seventy-five cents to one dollar and twenty-five
cents per hundred-weight. On many other articles the increase of
duty amounted to from twenty to one hundred per cent.
Naturally the home-market argument played an important part in the
debates. It was relied upon especially by Henry Clay in his closing
speech, [Footnote: Annals of Cong., 16 Cong., I Sess., II., 3034.]
in which he argued that the rapidity of growth of the United States
as compared with Europe made the ratio of the increase of her
capacity of consumption to that of our capacity of production as one
to four.
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