文档介绍：John C. Calhoun's Remarks to the Senate of the United States
John C. Calhoun's
Remarks to the Senate of
the United States
John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun's Remarks to the Senate of the United States
Mr. President:
At the last session of Congress, it was avowed on all sides that the
public debt, as to all practical purposes, was in fact paid, the small surplus
remaining being nearly covered by the money in the Treasury and the
bonds for duties which had already accrued; but with the arrival of this
event our last hope was doomed to be disappointed. After a long session
of many months, and the most earnest effort on the part of South Carolina
and the other Southern States to obtain relief, all that could be effected
was a small reduction of such a character that, while it diminished the
amount of burden, it distributed that burden more unequally than even the
obnoxious Act of 1828; reversing the principle adopted by the Bill of 1816,
of laying higher duties on the unprotected than the protected articles, by
repealing almost entirely the duties laid upon the former, and imposing the
burden almost entirely on the latter. It was thus that, instead of relief--
instead of an equal distribution of burdens and benefits of the government,
on the payment of the debt, as had been fondly anticipated--the duties
were so arranged as to be, in fact, bounties on one s