CHARLESTON
At the Carolina Coffee House on March 15, the printers, booksellers, bookbinders, and
stationers of Charleston considered "the propriety of addressing congress on the
additional duty proposed to be laid on Printing Types."[34] On the following evening, they adopted this
memorial,[35] read in the
House of Representatives on March 30, 1802:
South Carolina.
To the Honorable the Speaker & members of the House of Representatives of the
United States of America:
The Memorial of the Subscribers, printers, booksellers, & Stationers, in the City
of Charleston,
Respectfully sheweth,
That it is with concern your memorialists learn, that your honorable body have it in
contemplation to lay an additional duty on Printing Types, imported into the United
States; which, when laid, will be equal to 20 p cent on the Cost; and that this will
be done under the idea of giving encouragement to the manufacturers of Types in the
United States.—Your Memorialists beg leave to assure your honorable body, that
if they thought this Idea was well founded, & they could believe that the
different fonts of Types used in their Business, could be obtained in the United
States, it would give them great satisfaction to find encouragement, in the way
proposed, given to the manufactures of their country; but knowing that at this time,
there are not founderies amongst us that can furnish the twentieth part of the
existing demand, they can
view the intended additional duty in no
other light than an act that will distress your memorialists, and all others concerned
in the business of Printing, Bookselling, &c. and not add to the general good of
the Country. Your memorialists beg leave also to observe to your honorable body, that
while duties on almost every species of merchandise will fall but lightly on
individuals, being borne by the great mass of consumers, duties on mechanical
Implements, coming out of the pocket of the laborious artisan alone, must tend to
check the progress of trade, and damp the incentives to industry.—Therefore they
pray that your honorable body will not agree to the proposed additional duty on
Types.
And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will pray.
Charleston, March 17, 1802. Benjm F. Timothy, W P Young,
Bayfield Waller, John Query, John Crow, John Dacqueny, Thomas Sheppard, David R
Williams, Tho. Campbell Cox, Peter Freneau, G. M. Bounetheau, T B. Bowen,
Since the report of the Committee of Commerce and Manufactures had been committed to
the Committee of the Whole House, each of the above petitions, when read, was also
referred to the Committee of the Whole House. On December 14, 1802, these petitions were
referred to the Committee of Commerce and Manufactures. The committee reported back on
February 21, 1803, when the House, adopting their report, resolved that
the Secretary
of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, directed to prepare and lay before Congress,
early in their next session, a plan for the levying new and more specific duties . . .
.
[36]
And so, in the
Tariff Act of March 27, 1804, regulus of antimony was exempted from duty, but there was
no mention of any additional duty on imported printing type. Like most of the lobbies
which were to come, this one had been successful.
