8257. TARIFF, Burdens of.—[further continued].
These revenues will be
levied entirely on the rich, the business of
household manufacture being now so established
that the farmer and laborer clothe
themselves entirely. The rich alone use imported
articles, and on these alone the whole
taxes of the General Government are levied.
The poor man, who uses nothing but what
is made in his own farm or family, or within
his own country, pays not a farthing of tax
to the General Government, but on his salt;
and should we go into that manufacture also,
as is probable, he will pay nothing. Our
revenues liberated by the discharge of the
public debt, and its surplus applied to canals,
roads, schools, &c., the farmer will see his
government supported, his children educated,
and the face of his country made a paradise
by the contributions of the rich alone, without
his being called on to spend a cent from his
earnings. [474]
—
To General Kosciusko. Washington ed. v, 586.
(M.
1811)
