after they had reached their destination? Unless he had satisfactory reasons to believe it was his interest, he would be just as far from doing this as a high-minded merchant from a western city would be from asking it, or receiving it if offered. All who have assumed to represent the feelings of the merchants of New York, embraced by this bill, have expressly disavowed, on behalf of those merchants, a desire or even willingness to accept of the proposed measure, as a favor, boon, or charity, from the Government. They say they rest this claim upon its intrinsic justice; that it is founded on correct principle; and demand of us, as a matter of right, the passage of this bill; to prove which, they assume that the importer is a mere agent of the Government; that the bond he executes for duties is executed under a sort of legal restraint; that his contract is not voluntary. Both of these positions I consider altogether untenable. The importer cannot, in my conception, be understood to sustain to the Government the relation of an agent to his principal. It certainly cannot be, as the supporters of this measure have contended, that the importer sustains to the Federal Government the relation that the collector of the revenues in the States does to the State Governments. The collectors of the ports, as I understand it, answer to the place of the collector of the revenues in the States, and the importer, to every intent and purpose, answers to the place of tax payer. The collectors of the revenues in the State Govern. ments have no right of property in the taxes they collect, and are, in strictness, agents, just as much as the auctioneer is the agent of the owner of the goods which he sells. An agent has no right of property in the article the owner has placed in his hands: the owner has the entire right; and thus the one is easily distinguished from the other. Is not the importer, then, to every possible intent, the owner of his imported goods? Can he not keep and use them himself, or retail or wholesale them out, or refuse to do either, at his own option? None can deny this. And, if so, how can it be contended that the importer sustains the relation to this Government of a mere agent? It really seems to me the position is too self-evidently fallacious to be susceptible of elucidation. The gentleman from Massachusetts contends that it is the spirit and intention of the law that the consumer, and not the importer, should pay the duty. And hence, before the goods are sold to the consumer, if they are destroyed by fire or other accident, the importer should be released from the duty. Now, whilst I readily admit the practical effect of imposing duties upon importations, in this as in every other country, is, that the consumer pays it, I do deny that there is any thing in the spirit and meaning or policy of the laws imposing duties on importations that requires a sale by the importer, or a consumption of the article imported, before the Government has a right, in justice and in law, to exact its duties. When an importer introduces a foreign article into this Government, he acts with a view of making a profit by it. If it be in great demand, he perhaps makes a heavy profit; if in less demand, his profit diminishes in the same proportion; if it be in no demand, he perhaps fails in his sale, and loses upon the article. He makes his importation with a full knowledge of all his risks, and only does it because of his conviction that the prospect of a good profit is greater that the probability of a loss. His is a chancing bargain; and, if he lose by it, nothing but just one of those contingencies which, in the nature of things, must occasionally occur, has transpired, and he has no just ground of complaint. Suppose an importer introduce a quantity of some article subject to become worthless, and, after he enters it, and gives his bond for the duty, it actually becomes VOL. XII.-161 [H. of R. worthless, will it be contended the importer shall be released from the duty, because the article had not gotten off his hands before it spoiled? Surely, none will so con. tend. As well might it be contended that, if such article had enhanced in value, the Government should be entitled to the increased value. Such risks are incident to the nature of the business; and every rational man who engages in it so calculates, and lays his profits accordingly. I do not consider that the profit or per cent. which the importer makes upon his importation is the consideration that supports and renders valid the bonds given by him for duties, but it is the privilege of importing, and taking the chance of making a profit, that constitutes their real consideration. The Government does not un dertake to guaranty to the importer a sale of his imported goods, or a profit upon that sale. None, it is to be presumed, will contend that the importer who has failed to realize more than cost and carriage for his cargo, shall claim to be released from the duties he owes his Government, because he was unable to make a sale covering cost, carriage, and duty. The consideration of a bond for duties is exactly analogous to that of one executed for lottery tickets; the purchaser only buys a chance for a prize, and not the prize itself. And the purchaser of a ticket could, with just as much propriety, go to the agent of those who have made a lottery, and ask for his money back after he had drawn a blank, as the importer can come to us, sir, as the agents of the people, to whom all duties belong, and ask us to forgive him his bond, or to extend him a credit averaging four years; for it will be borne in mind that those who have advocated this bill have avowed an intention of sustaining another bill to release the duties on all goods that were destroyed in the hands of the importer; and no small proportion of their arguments have borne on this question. But further to elucidate my understanding of the practical operations of the chancing bargain of the importer--suppose those sufferers by the fire in New York had, since the fire, imported French goods to the value of 20,000,000 dollars, and a war with France, or a total exclusion of all French goods from our ports, had been determined upon by Congress: would not those importers have felt themselves entitled to all the advantages accruing to them in such a contingency? would they not, as sensible men, have improved their fortuitous position to make a much greater profit on these importations than they anticipated when they engaged in the enterprise? And who would ever think of their dividing their profits, thus greatly increased, with the Government, by whose immediate action those profits were enlarged? The gentleman from Massachusetts says, although it is the intention of the law that the consumer should pay the duty, and not the importer, yet the situation of the importer is altogether different from the merchant in Cincinnati, who may have purchased from the importer; the importer, being a kind of agent of the Government, has a right to demand his duties back of the Government if the goods imported be consumed before sale; but if the Cincinnati merchant buy the whole cargo, and it is consumed by fire, whilst his, though perhaps unremoved, the Government ought not to interfere, because one is a sort of agent of the Government, and pays the duty, and the other does not. Is this not rather a distinction without a difference? In neither case has the article reached the hands of the consumer. And if the gentleman's argument be good, that it is the intention of the law that the consumer should pay the duty, would it not as much defeat that intention in the case of the Cincinnati merchant as in that of the New York importer; and as much in the case of the village merchant, who is perhaps the third owner, as in either instance? |