unequal tariff, burdensome to my own constituents in many
respects, favorable in none? To consistency of that sort, I lay no
claim. And there is another sort to which I lay as little, and that is,
a kind of consistency by which persons feel themselves as much bound to
oppose a proposition after it has become a law of the land as before.

The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to the single object in which
the tariff of 1824 had manifestly failed in its effect, passed the House
of Representatives, but was lost here. We had then the act of 1828. I
need not recur to the history of a measure so recent. Its enemies spiced
it with whatsoever they thought would render it distasteful; its friends
took it, drugged as it was. Vast amounts of property, many millions, had
been invested in manufactures, under the inducements of the act of 1824.
Events called loudly, as I thought, for further regulation to secure the
degree of protection intended by that act. I was disposed to vote for
such regulation, and desired nothing more; but certainly was not to be
bantered out of my purpose by a threatened augmentation of duty on
molasses, put into the bill for the avowed purpose of making it
obnoxious. The vote may have been right or wrong, wise or unwise; but
it is little less than absurd to allege against it an inconsistency with
opposition to the former law.

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little now to say.
Another opportunity may be presented. I remarked the other day, that
this policy did not begin with us in New England; and yet, Sir, New
England is charged with vehemence as being favorable, or charged with
equal vehemence as being unfavorable, to the tariff policy, just as best
suits the time, place, and occasion for making some charge against her.
The credulity of the public has been put to its extreme capacity of
false impression relative to her conduct in this particular. Through all
the South, during the late contest, it was New England policy and a New
England administration that were afflicting the country with a tariff
beyond all endurance; while on the other side of the Alleghanies even
the act of 1828 itself, the very sublimated essence of oppression,
according to Southern opinions, was pronounced to be one of those
blessings for which the West was indebted to the "generous South."

With large investments in manufacturing establishments, and many and
various interests connected with and dependent