home, is again taken in the conclusion of the letter, in which he says:

"I will add nothing as to the impropriety of suffering any feelings that find their origin in the past pretensions of this Government to have an adverse influence upon the present conduct of Great Britain. Without such an assurance on her part, your mission, so far as relates to the colonial trade, must be wholly inoperative:" and he adds, that, if she wished, the United States, "in expiation of supposed past encroachments, would be driven to the necessity of retracing their legislative steps, without any certainty of its effect, and wholly dependent upon the indulgence of Great Britain. He suggests the improbability that Congress will take any further action on the subject.

In Mr. M'Lane's correspondence with Lord Aberdeen, he followed this part of his instructions in a very guarded manner, so as to avoid the indecorum of throwing direct blame on the preceding Administration of the United States. He says: "The undersigned need not here enter into a particular defence of the omission, on the part of the United States, seasonably to embrace the offer of the direct trade by Great Britain, in the year 1825, and to which allusion has so frequently been made. Whether it be subject more of regret or censure, it ought to be enough that the claims advanced in justification of it have since been abandoned by those who made them, have received no sanction from the people of the United States, and that they are not now revived."

This unwonted course of conciliation was not lost on Lord Aberdeen. Referring to the recent act of Congress, he quotes Mr. M'Lane's remark, that "it concedes, in its terms, all the power in the regulation of the colonial trade, and authorises the President to confer on British

subjects all those privileges, as well in the circuitous as the direct voyage, which Great Britain has at any time demanded or desired."

"In this declaration," he adds, "the undersigned is happy to observe the same spirit and disposition which dic tated Mr. M'Lane's former communications, wherein he announced the readiness and desire of the American Government to comply with the conditions of the act of Parliament of 1825;' and also that the claims advanced in justification of the omission of the United States to embrace the offers of this country, have been abandoned by those who urged them, and have received no sanction from the people of the United States."

After an amicable discussion, in which some supposed ambiguities in the act of Congress received a satisfactory explanation, the arrangement was made in August; and the direct commercial intercourse between the United States and the British islands, that had been for several years suspended, to the injury of both parties, was renewed on a more enlarged footing than it had ever stood on before.

We shall find that the agreeable anticipations of the Government were but partially realized.

The question of protecting American manufactures by means of an impost, continued to agitate the country more and more, both in and out of Congress; and the opposition to it assumed a more serious character, especially from South Carolina, in which State most of her leading men openly avowed the doctrine that the tariff law, being evidently intended for protection, instead of revenue, was contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and consequently void; that it was competent to the State to declare it null, and to resist its execution; that, finally, the terms of the Federal compact being thus

clearly violated, she might, as one of the original parties, secede from the Confederacy.

These threatening signs of discord and of violent political strife, and perhaps of civil war, did not dispose the friends of manufactures to relax from the advantage which they had obtained: they were, on the contrary, inclined to its unqualified support, and to object to all alterations and amendments.

In the month of January, Mr. Mallory, of Vermont, Chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, made an elaborate report on the subject.

The Committee say that the effects of the late tariff have "answered the hopes of its most ardent friends." They are highly gratified that its constitutionality has the sanction of the President, whose argument they cite, and enlarge upon. They dissent, however, from him, that its chief object should be revenue, rather than protection; and regard the last as a primary, not a secondary object. They also criticise the higher claims for protection which he allows to "articles of national defence," as practically obscure, and as too restrictive. They deny that, after a temporary protection has been extended to a manufacture for a reasonable period, if it "cannot then compete with foreign labor on equal terms," it does not merit protection; and say that, if foreign cotton goods were now admitted free of duty, the cotton manufactures, which have been at once so flourishing and so reduced in price, would be irretrievably ruined. They further deny that protection should be confined to objects. of "national importance," but insist that it should also be extended to "local objects," which they in fact show most of the products of the soil to be-as butter and cheese, iron, hemp, and sugar.

They question the correctness of the President's theory,

that the reduced price of domestic productions is the effect of the increased value of the precious metals. They refer the reduction altogether to the increased competition.

They entirely object to his plan of deciding whether an article deserves protection by considering it singly, as one that would prevent the adoption of any tariff. It is necessary, they say, that the different interests should act in concert, and give their united support to a system matured by their common counsels and mutual concessions.

They deny that additional duties are taxes on the consumer; and maintain that, "in all cases where the material is found at home, and the protection has been adequate, the domestic article becomes cheaper in price, and improved in quality."

They thus sum up the character of the last tariff: "that no interest which it has undertaken to protect is too minute," that it contains no evidence of attempts "to force manufactures for which the country is not ripe," of sufficient importance to require revision: that "no comforts of life are taxed unnecessarily high," with a proper regard to revenue and protection: that "the low prices of manufactured articles" have not been caused by "the increased value of the precious metals," which were never before so abundant and cheap in the United States: they believe that "the present general prosperity of the country is mainly to be attributed to the protecting system :" and they are decidedly averse to any change in its provisions, as calculated to excite alarm among the great interests of the country, and to shake their confidence in the plighted faith of the Gov

ernment.

The minority of the Committee, however, presented

a counter-report, which was submitted by Mr. Monell, of New York.

This is very little more than an echo of the opinions advanced by the President, which they invariably sustain wherever they have been at all impugned by the majority of the Committee: and it was not a little remarkable, that those whom the President substantially agreed with, on the great question of the constitutionality of the tariff, which then divided the nation, should have opposed nearly all his views in detail; while the minority, dissatisfied with the existing tariff, and desirous of reforming it, concur with the President in all his views, even with that of the constitutionality of protection. It forcibly illustrates of what absorbing and predominant importance were the President's individual opinions— since, on so interesting a topic as the tariff, these constituted the principal object both of attack and defence.

Amidst the evidences of party spirit which the country every where exhibited, in Congress and out of it, when so many are led by ambition or cupidity to encourage it for their own advantage, and when its domineering influence with the multitude is often sufficient to bear down all opposition offered by conscience, affection, or patriotism, it is gratifying to find, now and then, occasions when men have shown virtue and firmness enough to resist its sway.

In the act of Congress for regulating the judiciary, which passed in 1789, there is a provision that, whenever a State court decides a law of Congress or treaty to be void, or where the constitutionality of any statute or act of a State is questioned, or where the construction of the Constitution of the United States or of a treaty is involved. in a controversy, in all such cases appellate jurisdiction is given to the Supreme Court of the United States to