Income Redistribution? Blame Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun
I use the term "outstanding senators" advisedly because in 1957, a special Senate committee, chaired by John F. Kennedy, identified Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun as one of the nation's "five outstanding deceased senators."
You will probably ask how the committee could possibly name Calhoun -- the leading proponent of slavery -- one of the five greatest senators. It happened because the committee had agreed to judge candidates "for acts of statesmanship transcending party and State lines" and had defined statesmanship to include "leadership in national thought and constitutional interpretation as well as legislation."
But Calhoun was the proponent, not of one, but two lost causes. And while no American would espouse his views on slavery in the 21st century, his mature views on income redistribution are as relevant today as they were when he made them in 1828.Indeed Calhoun's views are alive and well in the tenets of the Republican Party.
Calhoun's first great lost cause was not slavery. It was the tariff -- a tariff Calhoun had strongly espoused in his early years in Congress -- during his nationalist period (c. 1816) when he served as one of Speaker Henry Clay's principal lieutenants, and worked to enact Clay's "American System."
It called for a protective tariff, first, to insure profitable home markets for the American manufacturers and, second, to finance "internal improvements." It was Calhoun's belief that a system of road and canals would appeal to the self-interest of farmers desirous of moving their produce to market as well as merchants engaged in commerce, and would thus bind them all to the national government.
But what Calhoun didn't foresee was that manufacturing would take hold only in the North (New England primarily) and not in the South. He did not foresee that the tariff would benefit only New England by keeping English manufactured products out of the country.
The tariff had the effect of denying cheaper English manufactured goods from entering the South, thus forcing the South to buy more expensive goods made in New England. It was this, that led to Calhoun to do a 180, abjure his earlier tariff position, and develop his doctrine of "nullification."
Calhoun came to believe that without states having power to nullify Congressional actions which they deemed unconstitutional, the majority in the North would bleed the minority in the South dry.
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury, in his Report on Manufactures to the House of Representatives, had written, "The power of Congress to authorize the expenditure of public moneys is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution, but is in addition thereto."
Mr. Hamilton further asserted that it belonged "to the discretion of Congress alone" to determine which "objects ... concern the General Welfare, and for which an appropriation of money is proper."
In 1828, Calhoun, in his South Carolina Exposition and Protest, assailed Hamilton's position. Calhoun did not deny the Constitution gave Congress power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States."
But he argued the Constitution gave Congress the power to "lay imposts and duties" only for the purpose of raising revenues for the "general" welfare, and not to raise revenues to benefit one section or class at the expense of another.
"The act of Congress of the last session, The Tariff of 1828 ... imposing duties on imports, not for revenue, but the protection of one branch of industry at the expense of others, is unconstitutional, unequal, oppressive, and calculated to ... destroy the liberty of the country. ...
"The opposing interests of the community would engender ... hostile parties, organized on this very diversity of interests, the stronger of which -- if the Government provided no efficient check -- would exercise unlimited and unrestrained power over the weaker."
He clearly saw the danger of the majority using the taxing power to enriching itself at the expense of the minority. He saw no difference between the majority using tax laws as a weapon to take from the minority and a highwayman using a pistol to despoil the occupants of a sumptuous coach.
But Calhoun was helpless to undo what he had done. The majority in the North fell in love with the benefits of the Calhoun/Clay tariff of 1816. Thus, as strange as it seems, President Obama walks in the shoes of Alexander Hamilton and John C. Calhoun!
Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:03 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012
John Donald O'Shea
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