are within the revenue standard.  When they go beyond that point, and as they increase the duties, the revenue is diminished or destroyed; the act ceases to have for its object the raising of money to support Government, but is for protection merely.  It does not follow that Congress should levy the highest duty on all articles of import which they will bear within the revenue standard, for such rates would probably produce a much larger amount than the economical administration of the Government would require.  Nor does it follow that the duties on all articles should be at the same or a horizontal rate.  Some articles will bear a much higher revenue duty than others.  Below the maximum of the revenue standard Congress may and ought to discriminate in the rates imposed, taking care so to adjust them on different articles as to produce in the aggregate the amount which, when added to the proceeds of the sales of public lands, may be needed to pay the economical expenses of the Government.

In levying a tariff of duties Congress exercise the taxing power, and for purposes of revenue may select the objects of taxation.  They may exempt certain articles altogether and permit their importation free of duty.  On others they may impose low duties.  In these classes should be embraced such articles of necessity as are in general use, and especially such as are consumed by the laborer and poor as well as by the wealthy citizen.  Care should be taken that all the great interests of the country, including manufactures, agriculture, commerce, navigation, and the mechanic arts, should, as far as may be practicable, derive equal advantages from the incidental protection which a just system of revenue duties may afford.  Taxation, direct or indirect, is a burden, and it should be so imposed as to operate as equally as may be on all classes in the proportion of their ability to bear it.  To make the taxing power an actual benefit to one class necessarily increases the burden of the others beyond their proportion, and would be manifestly unjust.  The terms “protection to domestic industry” are of popular import, but they should apply under a just system to all the various branches of industry in our country.  The farmer or planter who toils yearly in his fields is engaged in “domestic industry,” and is as much entitled to have his labor “protected” as the manufacturer, the man of commerce, the navigator, or the mechanic, who are engaged also in “domestic industry” in their different pursuits.  The joint labors of all these classes constitute the aggregate of the “domestic industry” of the nation, and they are equally entitled to the nation’s “protection.”  No one of them can justly claim to be the exclusive recipient of “protection,” which can only be afforded by increasing burdens on the “domestic industry” of the others.

If these views be correct, it remains to inquire how far the tariff act of 1842 is consistent with them.  That many of the provisions of that act are in violation of the cardinal principles here laid down all must concede.  The rates of duty imposed by it on some articles are prohibitory and on others so high as greatly to diminish importations and to produce a less amount of revenue than would be derived from lower rates.  They operate as “protection merely” to one branch of “domestic industry” by taxing other branches.