One is that by giving us the proceeds of
the lands we impoverish the national treasury, and thereby render
necessary an increase of the tariff. This may be true; but if so, the
amount of it only is that those whose pride, whose abundance of means,
prompt them to spurn the manufactures of our country, and to strut in
British cloaks and coats and pantaloons, may have to pay a few cents more
on the yard for the cloth that makes them. A terrible evil, truly, to
the Illinois farmer, who never wore, nor ever expects to wear, a single
yard of British goods in his whole life. Another of their reasons is
that by the passage and continuance of Mr. Clay's bill, we prevent the
passage of a bill which would give us more. This, if it were sound in
itself, is waging destructive war with the former position; for if Mr.
Clay's bill impoverishes the treasury too much, what shall be said of one
that impoverishes it still more? But it is not sound in itself. It is
not true that Mr. Clay's bill prevents the passage of one more favorable
to us of the new States.
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