Thomas Benton - Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"The 'American system' has taken the salt tax under its shelter and protection. The principles of that system, as I understand them, and practise upon them, are to tax, through the custom-house, the foreign rivals of our own essential productions, when, by that taxation, an adequate supply of the same article, as good and as cheap, can be made at home. These were the principles of the system (Mr. B. said) when he was initiated, and, if they had changed since, he had not changed with them; and he apprehended a promulgation of the change would produce a schism amongst its followers. Taking these to be the principles of the system, let the salt tax be brought to its test. In the first place, the domestic manufacture had enjoyed all possible protection. The duty was near three hundred per cent. on Liverpool salt, and four hundred upon alum salt; and to this must be added, so far as relates to all the interior manufactories, the protection arising from transportation, frequently equal to two or three hundred per cent. more. This great and excessive protection has been enjoyed, without interruption, for the last eighteen years, and partially for twenty years longer. This surely is time enough for the trial of a manufacture which requires but little skill or experience to carry it on. Now for the results. Have the domestic manufactories produced an adequate supply for the country? They have not; nor half enough. The production of the last year (1829) as shown in the returns to the Secretary of the Treasury, is about five millions of bushels; the importation of foreign salt, for the same period, as shown by the custom-house returns, is five million nine hundred and forty-five thousand five hundred and forty-seven bushels. This shows the consumption to be eleven millions of bushels, of which five are domestic. Here the failure in the essential particular of an adequate supply is more than one half. In the next place, how is it in point of price? Is the domestic article furnished as cheap as the foreign? Far from it, as already shown, and still further, as can be shown. The price of the domestic, along the coast of the Atlantic States, varies, at the works, from thirty-seven and a half to fifty cents; in the interior, the usual prices, at the works, are from thirty-three and a third cents to one dollar for the bushel of fifty pounds, which can nearly be put into a half bushel measure. The prices of the foreign salt, at the import cities, as shown in the custom-house returns for 1829, are, for the Liverpool blown, about fifteen cents for the bushel of fifty-six pounds; for Turk's Island and other West India salt, about nine cents; for St. Ubes and other Portugal salt, about eight cents; for Spanish salt, Bay of Biscay and Gibraltar, about seven cents; from the Island of Malta, six cents. Leaving out the Liverpool salt, which is made by boiling, and, therefore, contains slack and bittern, a septic ingredient, which promotes putrefaction, and renders that salt unfit for curing provisions, and which is not used in the West, and the average price of the strong, pure, alum salt, made by solar evaporation, in hot climates, is about eight cents to the bushel. Here, then, is another lamentable failure. Instead of being sold as cheap as the foreign, the domestic salt is from four to twelve times the price of alum salt. The last inquiry is as to the quality of the domestic article. Is it as good as the foreign? This is the most essential application of the test: and here again the failure is decisive. The domestic salt will not cure provisions for exportation (the little excepted which is made, in the Northeast, by solar evaporation), nor for consumption in the South, nor for long keeping at the army posts, nor for voyages with the navy. For all these purposes it is worthless, and useless, and the provisions which are put up in it are lost, or have to be repacked, at a great expense, in alum salt. This fact is well known throughout the West, where too many citizens have paid the penalty of trusting to domestic salt, to be duped or injured by it any longer.

"And here he submitted to the Senate, that the American system, without a gross departure from its original principles, could not cover this duty any longer. It has had the full benefit of that system in high duties, imposed for a long time, on foreign salt; it had not produced an adequate supply for the country, nor half a supply; nor at as cheap a rate, by three hundred or one thousand per cent.; and what it did supply so far from being equal in quantity, could not even be used as a substitute for the great and important business of the provision trade. The amount of so much of that trade as went to foreign countries, Mr. B. showed to be sixty-six thousand barrels of beef, fifty-four thousand barrels of pork, two millions of pounds of bacon, two millions of pounds of butter, and one million of pounds of cheese; and he considered the supply for the army and navy, and for consumption in the South, to exceed the quantity exported.

"It cannot be necessary here to dilate upon the uses of salt. But, in repealing that duty in England, it was thought worthy of notice that salt was necessary to the health, growth, and fattening of hogs, cattle, sheep, and horses; that it was a preservative of hay and clover, and restored moulded and flooded hay to its good and wholesome state, and made even straw and chaff available as food for cattle. The domestic salt makers need not speak of protection against alum salt. No quantity of duty will keep it out. The people must have it for the provision trade; and the duty upon that kind of salt is a grievous burthen upon them, without being of the least advantage to the salt makers.

"Mr. B. said, there was no argument which could be used here, in favor of continuing this duty, which was not used, and used in vain, in England; and many were used there, of much real force, which cannot be used here. The American system, by name, was not impressed into the service of the tax there, but its doctrines were; and he read a part of the report of the committee on salt duties, in 1817, to prove it. It was the statement of the agent of the British salt manufacturers, Mr. William Horne, who was sworn and examined as a witness. He said: 'I will commence by referring to the evidence I gave upon the subject of rock salt, in order to establish the presumption of the national importance of the salt trade, arising from the large extent of British capital employed in the trade, and the considerable number of persons dependant upon it for support. I, at the same time, stated that the salt trade was in a very depressed state, and that it continued to fall off. I think it cannot be doubted that the salt trade, in common with all staple British manufactures, is entitled to the protection of government; and the British manufacturers of salt consider that, in common with other manufacturers of this country, they are entitled to such protection, in particular from a competition at home with foreign manufacturers; and, in consequence, they hope to see a prohibitory duty on foreign salt.'

"Such was the petition of the British manufacturers. They urged the amount of their capital, the depressed state of their business, the number of persons dependent upon it for support, the duty of the government to protect it, the necessity for a prohibitory duty on foreign salt, and the fact that they were making more than the country could consume. The ministry backed them with a call for the continuance of the revenue, one million five hundred thousand pounds sterling, derived from the salt tax; and with a threat to lay that amount upon something else, if it was taken off of salt. All would not do. Mr. Calcraft, and his friends, appealed to the rights and interests of the people, as overruling considerations in questions of taxation. They denounced the tax itself as little less than impiety, and an attack upon the goodness and wisdom of God, who had filled the bowels of the earth, and the waves of the sea, with salt for the use and blessing of man, and to whom it was denied, its use clogged and fettered, by odious and abominable taxes. They demanded the whole repeal; and when the ministry and the manufacturers, overpowered by the voice of the people, offered to give up three fourths of the tax, they bravely resisted the proposition, stood out for total repeal, and carried it.