MR. CLAY'S SPEECH UPON THE TARIFF: OR THE 'AMERICAN SYSTEM,' SO CALLED; OR THE ANGLICAN SYSTEM, IN FACT, INTRODUCED HERE; AND PERVERTED IN ITS MOST MATERIAL BEARING UPON SOCIETY, BY THE OMISSION OF A SYSTEM OF CORN LAWS, FOR THE PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURE. GILES' SPEECH UPON THE RESOLUTIONS OF INQUIRY IN THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES OF VIRGINIA, IN REPLY TO CLAY'S SPEECH: ALSO, HIS SPEECH IN REPLY TO GEN. TAYLOR'S; ACCOMPANIED WITH SUNDRY OTHER INTERESTING SUBJECTS AND ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. THE WHOLE CONTAINING A MASS OF HIGHLY USEFUL INFORMATION AT THE PRESENT INTERESTING CRISIS.
Richmond: Thomas W. White, 1827. 188pp, disbound, Very Good.
Giles had been a prominent State Rights Jeffersonian in Congress in the late 18th and early 19th century, an influential supporter of the Virginia & Kentucky Resolutions, and a leader of the 1801 effort to repeal the Judiciary Act. After retiring from politics, he returned to the Virginia General Assembly where, in this piece, "he championed the well-known resolutions of 1827 against the tariff and internal improvements." DAB.
Giles opposed, root and branch, the Clay-Whig program of protective tariffs and federal funding of internal improvements as an unconstitutional usurpation of power-- "consolidation in its essence." In vintage Virginia State Rights lingo he asserts, "Disguise it as you may-- conceal it if you can-- the essence of the tariff is disunion-- disunion in sectional interests-- in individual occupations-- A war of all the discordant elements, of the different occupations in society, urged on, by individual cupidity, and grounded upon incessant efforts of reciprocal plunder-- cunning, being substituted for principle."
FIRST EDITION. Haynes 6900. Swem 1976. Item #6712
Price: $150.00