"The New Tariff," Telegraph and Texas Register, January 17, 1844

Summary: Reported on the Texas Congress's passage of a new tariff bill. The editor urged the Congress and the public to support lower tariffs because it would allow Texas to have advantages over the North in foreign markets and become an economic powerhouse. Above all, he did not want Texas to suffer the same economic disadvantages that the South had at the time.

We have received a copy of the bill now before Congress, entitled "a bill to be entitled An Act to [illegible word] and fix the duties on imports." This bill will remedy many of the deficits in the present Tariff. But we regret to find that in this as on other occasions our legislators overlook the main policy that should be pursued in the regulation of our commerce. So long as we remain separate from the United States we should endeavor to encourage the trade with those countries, whose manufactures compete with the manufactures of the New England States. The people of the Southern States are taxed heavily to foster and sustain the manufactures of the Northern States of the Union. We should not resolutely tax ourselves to support those manufacturers also, when by encouraging the introduction of English and French cotton and woollen[sic] goods, we can drive the Northern manufacturers out of our markets, and at the same time ensure a market for our cotton and other staples in the English, French and other European ports free of duty. If the planters of the Southern States could ship their cotton direct to England, and import English manufactures in exchange free of duty, they would see about 19 per cent on every article of cotton or woollen[sic] manufacture they would consume. Their cotton crop, therefore, would in reality net them about one-third more than it does under the present protective tariff of the United States. Under the present system the Northern manufacturers actually receive from the Southern planters a premium for their manufactures amounting to about one third of the value of the whole cotton crop of the Southern States. The planters of Texas should adopt no such suicidal policy, they should encourage trade with the countries which can sell them the manufactures they require, cheaper than the New England manufacturers, and which at the same time admit their cotton free of duty. By this means they will acquire an immense advantage over the planters of the U. States. Their cotton will yield them two or three cents more per pound in foreign markets, and the manufactured goods they receive in exchange, will cost them thirty or forty per cent less than those consumed by the Southern planters. By this means emigration from all the Southern States would be increased to an incalculable extent. Those planters findind[sic] that their slaves would yield them an annual income in Texas one third greater than they do now would flock here by thousands. Our fertile prairies would soon be whitened with cotton, and our harbors would be whitened with foreign sails; and our government, by the most moderate taxes, would derive a revenue which, increasing with the increasing population and extending commerce, would be more than adequate for its own support, and the surplus could be advantageously applied to the improvement of the navigation of our rivers, and the construction of roads, turnpikes, canals, &c. The resources of the country would be rapidly developed, and Texas would no longer be regarded with indifference by the people of the mother Republic; but would command the respect and admiration of the world, and excite the jealousy and envy of her less fortunate rivals, the Southern States of the Union. Let our legislators ponder well upon this momentous question, and not rashly, for the sake of extorting a few more thousand dollars, from the people of the Western and Middle countries, turn away from the golden harvest that is almost within their reach.

To effect this desirable object we would respectfully recommend that in forming the new Tariff, our legislators should examine carefully the tariff of the United States and that of Mexico, and put very low duties on articles upon which high duties are now levied in those tariffs with the exception of the agricultural products of the country. By this means the merchants of Texas could undersel[sic] those of the United States and Mexico. and the ports of Texas would become the great thoroughfares of the adjoining States on the stand on the west. European goods would be shipped to Texas to supply the Rancheros of the vallies of the Red River and Arkansas. Texas by levying light duties on those goods would actually render the citizens of the adjoining States tributary to her Galveston and Aransas[sic], would then become the great commercial emporiums not only of Eastern and Western Texas, but of the western portions of Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri, and the eastern provinces of Mexico. Indeed, if the commercial resources of this country were now developed; we question whether the citizens of Texas would for a moment listen to any propositions for the annexation of this republic to the United States.

Source Copy Consulted: "The New Tariff," Telegraph and Texas Register, January 17, 1844, p. 3