Selections: The Sugar Tax: Facts Worth Thinking Of

According to the New Orlenns Pric-o Current, the sugar erop of Louisiana last yesr, 1843, wns one hundred and forty m'dlions of pounds! A letter to the New York Journal of Commerce, dated Ba ton Rouge, Louisiana, June 25, 1344, says: "If no accident happen to the growing erop, the yield will bethis year, about doublé that of lasl.1' We wjll suppose the erop of this year, in Louisiana, o rAy-equalto that of last, and estimate the erop of Florida 60,000,000 íbs. This will givea total erop for this year, of two hundred vdlhons of pounds! The duty on sugar in 1842, under the Compromiseact. was 20 per centum ad valorehi, amounting at most to threc-fourths of h cent per pound. Before the cojnprombe act, the duty had been specific, say 2 or 3 cenu per pound. The Tariff oí 1842 restored this specific duty Sc fixed it at 2J cents per pouuo. The tariff bill introduced by Mr. McKay, ond voted for by a mnjority of the Democrats in the present Congrese, retained this specifiic duty, and fixed it at two cents perponnd. The Newburgh Telegraph, quoted by the New York Tiibune, states the pnce of sugar in New Orleans, at SL cents per pound in 1342, and 7 cents per pound in 1844. Of this greatrise, how much is attributable to the duty of 2J cents per pound on foreign stigars? We dare not say thé wholej'br even half, but to be entirely within bounds, will say a cent and a half per pound .A cent and a half per pound on 200,000000 poünds, is ihree mülions óf dollars. The number of sngar plnntations n Louisiana, according to the wriler in the Journal -of Commerce, is 70L. öne planter for each plantation, and estimating the number of plantera in Florida at 293, we have a total of one íhousand sugar planters. Three millions of dollars tax divided ambng one thousand planters! Let thepeople mark the quotiënt. It gives, on an average, Üirce thousand dollars a year, or hnlf a Unitec States Secretary of State's salary to eacb planter; as much, within 190 dollars, ns the State of Olrio allows ló lier Gevernor,. Secretary, Auditor and Treasurer fogetherf Analmost equal 6un), it must be noticed, b paid into the National Treasury, on foreign sugarz. This enormons tax is paid chiefly by ths free laborers of fhis country. Eveiy msn and wojnan who uses a pound of brown sugar, paye a cent and a half towards jt. Against this enormöüs tax, which violntes every principie of sound policy and political economy, néither tariff VVhigs nor free trade Democratö, have dared to speak or mutter.The Whlgs aided' by the Demócrata, irnposed tlie tax in the tWiffof 1842. Such anti-slavery Whigs as iddings and his sort, who cah recon cile th'eir elastic conscientes io the support of Hcnry Clay, of course find no cïiflicuity ín voling (br t. The Demócrata. ' kavíng a 'majorhy of CO in the House of IJfprosenaaiivè's in 1844. did not repen] it. No Demoerat in Conaross ever uttered a word agaiffai t. The bill'o? McKay, which wasvb'tèd for byhp, anti tarirl "'Democrats. andwhich pröpösed immense reductions of oiher duñes, only proposed lialT .1 cent reduction of ' thip, leaving it Itif! a specific duty of two cents per pound, and lieavy enougli to pro(i;oe all the cfFicts of the oiher. The, Liberty men rötcst agninst this tax, and againn all other faxes like it. dispqsed and calculated to eiifich slaveholclers out of the 'free laborers. All parties ngre'e tliat Congres shoul.l lny a tari ff for revenue. (Jiscriminatin-r' for the protectïon of hMlusir. The J.iberty party, alone insistthat wharever discriinination is niadeshoukl bein favor of free lnborers. Whieh party vül