Contemporaneously with this theory of protective duties,
arose the policy of making appropriations from the common Treasury for
local improvements. As the Southern representatives were mainly those
who denied the constitutional power to make such expenditures, it
naturally resulted that the mass of those appropriations were made for
Northern works. Now that direct taxes had in practice been so wholly
abandoned as to be almost an obsolete idea, and now that the Treasury
was supplied by the collection of duties upon imports, two golden
streams flowed steadily to enrich the Northern and manufacturing region
by the impoverishment of the Southern and agricultural section. In the
train of wealth and demand for labor followed immigration and the more
rapid increase of population in the Northern than in the Southern
States. I do not deny the existence of other causes, such as the fertile
region of the Northwest, the better harbors, the greater amount of
shipping of the Northeastern States, and the prejudice of Europeans
against contact with the negro race; but the causes I have first stated
were, I think, the chief, and those only which are referable to the
action of the General Government. It was not found that the possession
of power mitigated the injustice of its use by the North, and discontent
therefore was steadily accumulating, and, as stated in the beginning of
this chapter, I think was due to class legislation in the form of
protective duties and its consequences more than to any or all other
causes combined.
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