Miscellaneous Back Matter [pp. 472A-RD06]

FREE TRADE-DUTIES ON IMPORTS.
which duties and other taxes are to be imposed, and, therefore, an honest
interpretation and administration of the Constitution would exclude all
luties, except such as are best adapted, so far as it can be practically ascertained, to serve that purpose. But we have seen that low duties are always
relatively more productive of revenue than high duties; hence it follows
that they are more consistent with the true spirit and intent of the Constitution. It is scarcely possible that any minister of finance, acting under
this Constitution, would venture to propose, as Mr. Secretary Guthrie actually did, that the revenue should be reduced by increasing the duties on
imports.
ADVANTAGES OF LOW DUTIES.
Among the many considerations which might be presented in favor of
low duties, perhaps not the least, is the little temptation they offer to smuggling and other fraudulent evasions. When duties are very high the profits
of smuggling are proportionably large, and are much more than sufficient to
(,over all the extraordinary risks and expenses attending illicit importations.
The higher the duties the greater the profits of smuggling, and the stronger
the inducements to embark in it. High duties are in fact premiums for the
encouragement and promotion of smuggling. Nor can it be prevented by
any practicable degree of vigilance. When the policy of high duties prevailed in England, though the island was always surrounded by a fleet of
revenue cutters, and sentinels of the preventive service lyere posted all
along its shores within sight of each other, some smuggling continued to be
(arried on. The gain acquired by the evasion of high duties is more than
sufficient to overcome any obstacles that can be opposed to illicit importations. But with low duties the trade of the smuggler is not worth pursuing.
At the best, it can never be all clear gain. Besides the risk of total loss by
detection and forfeiture (which, like other risks, may be estimated in
money) there must be some expenses, either in the form of bribes paid to
infaithful revenue officers, or the cost of circuitous and clandestine transportation, and other appliances for securing concealment. So that where
the duties do not exceed ten per cent., it may well be questioned whether
it is not about as cheap to pay them as to circumvent the custom-house.
At all events, there must be some rate of duty low enough to remove
every inducement to smuggling, and that is perhaps the rate which it is the
true policy of a Government bound by its Constitution to lay duties for no
other object than revenue, to ascertain and adopt as far as it may be practicable. In addition to the many advantages which follow in the train of
low duties, this policy is further recommended by the consideration that it
would very much diminish the cost of collecting the revenue, by enabling
tihe Government in a great measure to dispense with the force maintained
ior the prevention of smuggling.
It has been often proposed, as the truest and most impartial rule for the
adjustment of duties on imports, that there should be one uniform rate on
all things alike, without any discriminations whatever. While we were
,.onnected with the Northern States under a common Government, and
liable to be plundered and despoiled by the imposition of discriminating
duties, intended to secure the products of their industry against foreign
,competition at our expense, and as much as possible to throw upon us the
burthen of supporting the Government and furnishing the means of extravagant expenditures for their benefit, if perfect equality and uniformity
in the imposition of duties could have been established as a principle of the
Constitution from which there could be no deviation, it would probably
have been an effectual safeguard against the wrongs and abuses to which
the power of laying duties was perverted. For as the producers of those
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