"It may be desirable, as the majority of the House of Representatives has declared it is, that no such checks upon the will of the Legislature should be suffered to continue. This is a matter for the people and States to decide; but, until they shall have decided it, I shall feel myself bound to execute, without fear or favour, the law, as it has been written by our predecessors.

"I protest against this whole proceeding of the House of Representatives as ex parte and extrajudicial. I protest against it, as subversive of the common right of all citizens, to be condemned only upon a fair and impartial trial according to law and evidence before the country. I protest against it, as destructive to all comity of intercourse between the departments of this Government, and destined, sooner or latter, to lead to conflicts fatal to the peace of the country and the integrity of the constitution. I protest against it in the name of that constitution, which is not only my own shield of protection and defence, but that of every American citizen. I protest against it, in the name of the people, by whose will I stand where I do, and by whose authority I exercise the power which I am charged with having usurped, and to whom I am responsible for a firm and faithful discharge, according to my own convictions of duty, of the high stewardship confided to me by them. I protest against it, in the name of all regulated liberty, and all limited government, as a proceeding tending to the utter destruction of the checks and balances of the constitution, and the accumulating in the hands of the House of Representatives, or a bare majority of Congress for the time being, of an uncontrolled and despotic power. And I respectfully ask that this, my protest, may be entered upon the journal of the House of Representatives, as a solemn and formal declaration, for all time to come, of the injustice and unconstitutionality of such a proceeding."

The Act came into operation on the 29th August, 1842.

The duty on iron hammered was fixed at 17 dollars per ton.

The following clause was inserted in the Bill:

"Sec. 30. And be it further enacted, that, so long as the distribution of the net proceeds of the sales of the public lands, directed to be made among the several States, Territories, and District of Columbia, by the Act entitled 'An Act to appropriate the Proceeds of the Sales of the Public Lands and to grant Pre-emption Rights, shall be and remain suspended by virtue of this Act, and of the proviso of the sixth section of the Act aforesaid, the 10 per cent. of the said proceeds directed to be paid by the said Act to the several States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Michigan shall also be and remain suspended.

"Passed the House of Representatives, July 16th, 1842."

It is probable that the manufacturers might not have been able to carry their point, had not the Southern States been apprehensive that if they made any resolute stand against the increase of duties, and still more if they threatened to secede from the Union in the event of its being carried, they might be brought into serious difficulties by the agitation of the question as to the emancipation of their slaves. The latter, therefore, having to chose between two evils, preferred of course that which they believed to be the least, and purchased a truce for the emancipation by agreeing to the Tariff, by which comparatively high duties were again imposed on most descriptions of imported articles.

Happily, however, this system has not been so permanent as was expected. The Western and Southern States, being those most directly interested in a low Tariff, have of late years had a majority in Congress; and the apprehensions with regard to Negro emancipation, excited by the proceedings in our islands, having subsided, sounder opinions with regard to commercial matters began again to prevail in Congress. Perhaps, however, the majority now referred to, or the party of Mr. Polk, might not have endeavoured to act on those principles without the example set by England; but the great commercial reforms effected in this country during the administration of Sir Robert Peel, and more especially the last and greatest of all, the change in the Corn Laws, had a powerful

influence in the United States, and Mr. Polk's government having profited by these and other circumstances, succeeded in carrying a comparatively liberal tariff, which took effect from the 1st December, 1846:

On iron in bars, blooms, bolts, hoops, pigs, rods, slabs, or other form, not otherwise provided for, castings, old or scrap, and vessels of cast iron,-an ad valorem duty of 30 per cent. On steel in bars, cast, shear, or German,-an ad valorem

duty of 15 per cent.

IRON MANUFACTURES OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1850. From the "Report of the Superintendent of the seventh Census."

order of the House of Representatives.

PIG-IRON.

Printed by

Number of establishments in operation, 377. Capital invested, 17,346,425 dollars.

Number of persons employed, 20,448. Average wages per month, 20 dols. 76 cts. Pig-iron made, 564,755 tons; value, 12,748,777 dollars.

CASTINGS.

Number of establishments in operation, 1,391. Capital invested, 17,416,361 dollars.

Average wages per month, 27 dols.

Number of persons employed, 23,589.

38 cts. Castings made, 322,745 tons; value, 25,108,155 dollars.

WROUGHT-IRON.

Number of establishments in operation, 422. Capital invested, 14,495,220

Number of persons employed, 13,257. Average wages per month, 25 dols. 41 cts. Wrought iron made, 278,044 tons; value, 16,747,074 dollars.

CHAP. XII.

BELGIUM AND OTHER STATES.

BELGIUM.

THE early history of the manufacture of iron in this country, formerly comprehended in the district of Gaul, having already been noticed in our chapter on France, it will be only necessary briefly to refer to it, and then pass to the present Karston mentions, in his "Manuel de la Métallurgie du Fer," that in Belgium the conversion of the mineral into cast-iron was first brought into operation; and he states that in 1560 there were in the province of Namur 35 furnaces and 85 forges.

era.

Before the union of Belgium and France the trade dwindled away in the part of the provinces under the control of Austria. There were 45 furnaces, which produced about 14,600 tons per annum; and at the same period, at Liege, 18 furnaces, producing, on an average of ten years, 3933 tons. Under the French Government the production of iron was more fully developed. The furnaces were built in the circular form, and the height was raised to 25 feet, they never before having exceeded 17 feet. The bellows in brass and wood were replaced by bellows worked by a piston. In 1806 there were in Belgium 89 furnaces, 124 forges, 35 hammers, 18 foundries, and 27 rolling-mills. After the Peace, the iron manufacture may be considered to have recommenced about 1821. In 1822 there was placed at the disposal of the King an annual sum of 1,000,000 florins for the encouragement of industry, by premiums, loans, and other means. The first object was to improve the method of smelt