the great loss of the purchasers. We know that a Texas planter, last year, was advised to go to these neighborhoods, in order to procure at a very cheap rate second hand machinery on plantations where the sugar culture had been abandoned.

Need we look to any extrinsic cause, for the failure of these wreckless speculators? Did not the same kind of speculations, the same wrecklessness, and similar failures take place among the purchasers of negroes and cotton estates? Look at the history of the cotton planters in Alabama, from 1832 to 1840. The same wild spirit of speculation will be seen to have been followed by the same consequences-ruin and bankruptcy, but in this case without the consolations of the Citizens' Bank.

"The sugar planters, (says Mr. Forestall) in this bank, represent 40,000 shares, which enabled them to obtain a loan at fifty years of $2,000,000 (on the reimbursement per annum of 2 per cent. and the payment of 6 per cent. interest;) but for this aid, few, if any of them, would have been able to withstand the revulsion of 1837, which only terminated in 1842, and then found them for want of means or credit to work properly their estates, verging towards absolute ruin. The tariff of 1842, was their salvation."

However it may surprise the reader, we must inform him, that all the failures and losses of the sugar-planters, which every man of sense and unexcited judgment, must have foreseen as the inevitable consequence of speculations so extravagant, are attributed by Mr. Forestall to the compromise tariff of 1832.

"The effect of such legislation, (he says,) on the sugar interest was fatal; it at once destroyed the credit of all those interested in it as effectually, (borrowing a phrase of Mr. Clay,) as if war and pestilence had been raging over the whole of the sugar parishes." "Money-lenders then believed that great interest annihilated."

In addition to the causes above shown for the failures and sorry condition of the sugar-planters, resulting naturally from their own rashness, Mr. Forestall very unintentionally gives us further light upon the subject. The crop of 1827, 1828, directly proceeding this rush of speculation, was a very large one. That immediately following the commencement of the mania for sugar estates upon credit, a very bad one. "This great deficit of the crop, (says Mr.

F.) compared to the yield of 1827-28, with the above additional outlay of $16,000,000, soon made it necessary to resort to foreign capital." The reduction of the duty on molasses from 10 to 5 cents a gallon, was enough in the eyes .of so distinguished a political economist, to produce more. disastrous results, than all the effects of over issues, overtrading, stopping payments, and no payments at all. If the "sugar-planters found themselves suddenly thrown upon their own resources, or at the mercy of their creditors" it was the consequence of their own folly. Cotton-planters and other agriculturists, as well as merchants, have on all occasions of difficulty, been "thrown upon their own resources and at the mercy of their creditors." Would the sugar-planter be willing now, to enter into an average with the cotton-planter or any other agriculturist of the United States to divide his profits?

From what we have quoted from Mr. Clay, the Baton Rouge Society, and Mr. Forestall, let the reader observe that the diversion in favor of "sugar farms" as the Baton Rouge Society are pleased to style sugar plantations, was from the cotton culture. Subsequent to this very period, (in 1832) Mr. Bullerd a member from Louisiana, asserted the fact on the floor of Congress, that on their rich soil they could afford to make cotton at 3 cents a pound! The planter of course intended to quit a worse for a better business. The profits in the sugar culture were immense, and hence the great rush to that business. Can any government guard its citizens against such imprudent conduct? Is she bound to indemnify them for losses incident upon their own indiscretion? Is it proper or within the legitimate objects of any free and equal government, that the imprudence of one class of citizens should be compensated out of the hard earnings of others? Have we moreover, any evidence that those who continued to plant cotton did any better than those who devoted their capital to sugar? Have not the cotton and rice planter, the tobacco-planter, the wheat and hemp-growers, the stock-raiser, and every other agriculturist had their times of sad reverse? Is the government prepared or disposed to compensate them, by taxing all other classes of the community? The truth is, that the sugar business was, and is, and always has been, the most profitable of all planting in the United States.

Let the reader also observe that if the Lower Louisiana,

the Delta, as Mr. C. calls it, is deprived of this protection, her planters if they could no longer find it profitable to make sugar, (which we by no means admit, and will show to the contrary before we are done,) could at least return to the planting of cotton; and if they could not grow cotton so profitably as can be done higher up the Mississippi, they could certainly do so, much more profitably than can be done in two-thirds of the cotton growing region; and we know of no part yet willing to be submerged into the gulf. Besides it cannot be denied that they can manufacture, and raise corn and bread stuffs,-a course so strenuously recommended to Carolina, as much more profitable than cottonplanting. As to the "encouragement," proposed by the Baton Rouge Society in this matter of sugar, to "our fellow citizens of Georgia, South-Carolina, and Florida," we fear the citizens of these States have greatly misconceived the intended kindness, and if permitted to judge for themselves, would prefer dispensing with this "just reward and merited encouragement." In a free country, where no exclusive privileges are granted, we should expect that honest and industrious men would meet their "merited encouragement;" but "just rewards" we have always supposed, should be the recompense of disinterested and generous actions. We may yield to the demands of the lusty beggar, but doubt if our contributions to any class should ever be called, "merited encouragement," or "just reward.”

Let us now enquire what "just reward," or "merited encouragement," the sugar interest of the United States, have to claim of the rest of the community? How came it that this should have been selected from all other agricultural interests for protection? We will answer this question, at the same time that we reply to the assertion made by Mr. Abbot Lawrence in his letter to Mr. Rives, that the tariff of 1816, was due to the distinguished statesmen of the cotton growing States, "who successfully consummated an act that has done so much to promote the prosperity of the whole Union." "The primary object on the part of these members of congress representing the cotton planting States, in establishing a high protective tariff, was to extend the consumption of their great staple in this country, by excluding foreign made fabrics and substituting a domestic article, manufactured of American cotton." This is an assertion as bold as that of Mr. Clay, that the Legislature

of South-Carolina as early as 1808, had declared herself in favor of what he calls the American system. Mr. Lawrence gives us no reference, makes no quotation, and refers to no vote. This information of Mr. Lawrence, is we confess, absolutely new to us. By whom were such principles avowed in 1816? What member expressed them?

In the House of Representatives the bill passed by SS to 54. The cotton growing States, were, at that time, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana, (Alabama, Mississippi, &c. were not yet States;) of these four States 7 members voted for the bill, 18 against it. In the Senate, one member from S. C. and one from Georgia were absent. There were 4 votes given for the bill and 3 against it-two absent. But there were 32 votes in the Senate. From the following Northern States; New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, there were 14 votes for the bill and two against it. If the seven votes of the cotton growing States then present in the Senate had all voted against the bill, it would have made no difference, for the bill passed in the Senate 25 to 7. There were but two votes in the Senate, from all the Northern and New-England States, against the measure. These two votes were,

to their credit be it said, those of Jeremiah Mason from New-Hampshire, and Christopher Gore from Massachusetts. Every senator from Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, voted for the measure. Including the two votes against the bill, above mentioned, there were but 7 senators, 2 from Maryland, 1 from Virginia, and 2 from North-Carolina that voted against the bill. Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee voted for the bill.

Of the New England votes in the House, there were 17 for the bill, and 10 against it. If we were to class Virginia with the cotton growing States, which we might well do, it would cause the balance to be still greater in their favor,for in the House, 7 of her members voted for the bill, and 13 against it. It was much more the measure of NewEngland, and most decidedly a Northern, not a Southern

measure.

In the debate of 1830, on Foot's resolutions, Gen. Hayne, in his admirable reply to Mr. Webster, says:

"But, Mr. President, to be serious, what are we of the South to think of what we have heard this day? The Senator from Massachusetts tells us that the tariff is not an Eastern measure, and treats it as if the East had no interest in it. The Senator from Missouri insists it is not a Western measure, and that it has done no good to the West. The South comes in, and in the most earnest manner represents to you, that this measure, which we are told 'is of no value to the East or to the West,' is utterly destructive to our interest, etc.,-and our brethren turn a deaf ear to our complaints."

There is a private history connected with the 3 cents per pound on sugar, which we have often heard from the late Governor Taylor, who, at that time, was a member of the House of Representatives. We allude to the bargain between the northern manufacturers and iron-men, and the Louisiana sugar planters. We shall not venture to give the names of persons or a narrative of the details of this bargain. It is enough to say, that the parties interested at the North, were uneasy as to the result, and anxious to receive the vote of the new State of Louisiana, and that, a duty of 3 cents per pound on sugar was considered by both sides, as an ample consideration for the vote. From that day to this, the production of Louisiana sugar has been classed with that kind of industry, which is alone called "home industry," and she has become a sharer in the spoils.

If any statesman of South-Carolina or of any other cotton-growing State, at that time advocated the principles of protection, the cotton planters have never attempted to justify the act. Claiming no privilege, and receiving no share of the spoils, if their statesmen erred, they erred honestly, against their interest, and not to promote it. But that any Southern statesman ever gave utterance to the idea, that a high tariff was desirable for the protection of the cottongrowing States, or ever looked to the extension of the consumption of their great staple in this country by "excluding foreign made cotton fabrics," we absolutely deny and demand the proof. To imagine this, they must have been absolute fools, idiots,-which will scarcely be pretended.

But, if some of our Southern statesmen, had made such a mistake, had avowed such false principles,-would this be reason sufficient, that we should ever afterwards bow our necks to the yoke? Would the people of Great Britain, demanding a repeal of their corn laws, find a satisfactory answer in the fact that their establishment had been the