WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 18 1 14,
248
until it shall have been made manifest that the people of the Republic prefer to pay the amount requisite for the support of the government, by way of direct taxes. If the past be any criterion, the conclusion is irresistible that they do not entertain such preference, and this conclusion is strengthened by the reflection that our direct taxes, as now fixed by law, are not more than one third or one fourth as high as they necessari!y would have to be were the government compelled to rely upon them for support. It would, therefore, in the opinion of the Executive, be more prudent, because more safe, first to ascertain that the people will pay the necessary amount of direct taxes for the support of the goyernment, before resort is had to the doubtful and hazardous experiment of trusting too much in that source. It is ascertained that the appropriations of this year will largely exceed those of the last. If, then, the rev_enue from imposts should be reduced from about twenty four to seventeen per cent, ad valorem (or about thirty thousand dollars in the aggregate), as this bill proposes, whence are we to derive the means of meeting the state of things thus produced? The deficiency in the revenue of thirty thousand dollars will not of course pay the excess in the appropriations; and thus the government would be left inex- tricably embarrassed by the passage of the bill, to the amount of many thousand dollars. But it may be urged that the reduction of the tariff will increase importations and thus supply the deficit caused by the proposed reduction. This is doubtful: for importations are always regu- lated by the importing merchant in the direct ratio of the demand for consumption. But were this even the case, the policy would be questionable at this period of our history. The more we are induced to make out of our means at home, by the cultivation of the soil and the manufacture of its products, the more is secured to the sum of both national and individual wealth. As a people, we may in this way become independent of others, as to many of those articles which, from lack of encouragement at home, are now imported, and on all of which we are compelled to pay the impost tax. When we shall have become populous and firmly established as a nation, and our people shall be willing as well as able to pay a sufficient amount of direct taxes to support the government, the period may have arrived for the passage of this bill, or even to go further and throw open the ports of the country to the commerce of the world. That period, however, has not yet arrived; and as necessity compels us to address ourselves to the best means of
.I
,l
' ,
Powered by FlippingBook