Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/136

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The First Test of Strength
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deavor to locate tax burdens one could not attempt to trace the more remote effects upon production; for at what point could one call a halt? It would be found that one could not stop even at the producer who made the immediate exchange, but that one would be bound to follow the principle until he included nearly every class of producers engaged in the preceding exchanges. There was no objection to adopting this view of the subject, provided that in judging of the effects of the tariff on American production the principle was not made to stop with the grower of cotton.[1]

Other prominent men, such as Colonel William Drayton,[2] though they, with the majority of the Union party, thought the tariff acts unjust and oppressive and repugnant to the meaning and spirit of the Constitution, pointed out that it must be borne in mind that these sentiments were at variance with those of many of the most distinguished patriots.[3] In fact, the weight of

  1. Patriot, May 31, 1831.
  2. Courier, November 23, 1831.
  3. The protective system had been recommended, as both constitutional and expedient, by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, and Jackson. It was so considered shortly after the adoption of the federal Constitution, in a Congress of which