University of Virginia Library

8266. TARIFF, Patriotism and.—

Shall
we suppress the impost and give that advantage
to foreign over domestic manufactures?
On a few articles of more general and necessary
use, the suppression in due season will
doubtless be right, but the great mass of the
articles on which impost is paid is foreign
luxuries, purchased by those only who are
rich enough to afford themselves the use of
them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer
its continuance and application to the
great purposes of the public education, roads,
rivers, canals, and such other objects of public
improvement as it may be thought proper
to add to the constitutional enumeration of
Federal powers.—
Sixth Annual Message. Washington ed. viii, 68. Ford ed., viii, 493.
(1806)