action. He was, therefore, at
once a full length ahead of all others in measures which were national,
and which required a broad and liberal construction of the Constitution.
This is historic truth. Of his agency in the bank, and other measures
connected with the currency, I have already spoken, and I do not
understand him to deny any thing I have said, in that particular.
Indeed, I have said nothing capable of denial.

Now allow me a few words upon the tariff. The tariff of 1816 was
distinctly a South Carolina measure. Look at the votes, and you will see
it. It was a tariff for the benefit of South Carolina interests, and
carried through Congress by South Carolina votes and South Carolina
influence. Even the _minimum_, Sir, the so-much-reproached, the
abominable _minimum_, that subject of angry indignation and wrathful
rhetoric, is of Southern origin, and has a South Carolina parentage.

Sir, the contest on that occasion was chiefly between the cotton-growers
at home, and the importers of cotton fabrics from India. These India
fabrics were made from the cotton of that country. The people of this
country were using cotton fabrics not made of American cotton, and, so
far, they were diminishing the demand for such cotton. The importation
of India cottons was then very large, and this bill was designed to put
an end to it, and, with the help of the _minimum_, it did put an end to
it. The cotton manufactures of the North were then in their infancy.
They had some friends in Congress, but, if I recollect, the majority of
Massachusetts members and of New England members were against this
cotton tariff of 1816. I remember well, that the main debate was between
the importers of India cottons, in the North, and the cotton-growers of
the South. The gentleman cannot deny the truth of this, or any part of
it. Boston opposed this tariff, and Salem opposed it, warmly and
vigorously. But the honorable member supported it, and the law passed.
And now be it always remembered, Sir, that that act passed on the
professed ground of protection; that it had in it the _minimum_
principle, and that the honorable member, and other leading gentlemen
from his own State, supported it, voted for it, and carried it through
Congress.

And now, Sir, we come to the doctrine of internal improvement, that
other usurpation, that other oppression, which has come so near to
justifying violent disruption of the government, and scattering the
fragments of th