[Sidenote: The committee on Manufactures.]
The House of Representatives, the body which had upheld even radically national views of the character of the political system during the Missouri struggle, very naturally responded to Mr. Monroe's recommendation, and referred it to its committee on Manufactures for consideration and support. Heretofore this subject had been referred to the committee on Ways and Means, the regular revenue-raising committee. Its reference now to the committee on Manufactures is good evidence that the House of Representatives regarded a protective tariff as a subject which Congress might deal with independently, and without any necessary connection with the subject of the revenue. Such a view is radically national. It rests upon the doctrine that Congress may do anything in the regulation of foreign trade and commerce which, in its own opinion, is conducive to the general welfare, regardless of the pecuniary needs of the Government.
On January 9th, 1823, Mr. Tod, of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the committee on Manufactures, reported a tariff bill. It proposed to nearly double the existing duty upon iron, quadruple that upon coarse woollens, and to increase the custom-house valuation of dyed cotton goods by some forty per centum.
{ 111} Moreover, the bill made no provision for the future reduction of these duties. It therefore indicated that protection was to be the permanent policy, protection so high as to amount to the prohibition of the importation of coarse cottons and woollens and bar iron. In fact, Mr. Tod conceded that the prohibition of the importation of coarse woollens was intended. He said that the tariff of 1816 on coarse cotton goods had given a monopoly of the domestic markets for such goods to the home manufacturers, while the price of the goods had been reduced through home competition by one-half, and that his committee desired to bring about the same result in regard to the manufacture of coarse woollens.
[Sidenote: The general character of the bill, and its failure to pass.]
Mr. Tod was not able to get a vote upon his bill at this session of the Congress. Three significant facts, however, were elicited in the course of the debate upon it, facts which indicated the trend of political history. These facts were that the bill was a Pennsylvania measure, that the South would oppose it, and that Massachusetts and New York City would unite with the South in this opposition. It was, in fact, a Massachusetts man, Mr. Gorham, who denounced the bill as sectional legislation, and advised the South to resist it to the utmost. Cotton and commerce, and that meant slavery and commerce, were beginning to discover their affinity.