Planters & Sugar Manufacturers

Sugar Planters & Manufactures: 1842. Jefferson Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by: Gaytha Carver Thompson

27th Congress
2nd Session

SENATE

MEMORIAL of A NUMBER OF PLANTERS AND SUGAR MANUFACTURES IN THE STATE OF
LOUISIANA,

PRAYING

An increase of the duties on imported sugar.

JUNE 23, 1842
Referred to the Committee on Printing,
JUNE 24, 1842
Ordered to be printed

To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States in Congress assembled:

The undersigned, planters and sugar manufactures of the State of Louisiana,
beg respectfully to state:

That it is only after losses have reached their height, that events have proved that, under the practical operation of the compromise bill our agriculture and our commerce, as well as our manufacturing interest are not only paralyzed, but brought to the very verge of absolute ruin. That they approach the representatives of the nation, in Congress assembled, earnestly to pray them to come to the relief of an industry involving an outlay of capital of $52,000,000, the destruction of which, be causing a national loss to an extent beyond calculation, would lead to expropriation of almost every planter connected with it.

That against the theories, discarding discriminating duties intended to foster home labor, which have brought every department of our Government into disrepute which have made, with few exceptions, every mechanic, every manufacture, very merchant, every farmer, every corporation, in our once happy Union, a bankrupt and which at length, after long struggle, are shaking our Government itself to its very foundation the undersigned beg most respectfully to oppose the authority of one our ablest and most honored statesmen.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson was one of the most ardent and strenuous advocates of free trade; his opinions, in 1816, were as follows (Niles Register, vol. 10; page 25 letter to Benjamin Austin)

Compare the present state of things with that of '85, and say whether an opinion, founded in the circumstances of that day, can be fairly applied to those present. We have experienced what we then did not believe, that there exist both profligacy and power to exclude us from the field of interchange with other nations; that to be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist. The former question is nothing short of three cents duty on raw sugars, and other qualities in proportion, can avert the calamity about visiting every sugar planter of Louisiana, and to add that, even setting aside all other considerations, the sugar interest having grown under the revenue tariff of 1816, and under that tariff millions and millions of dollars having been permanently invested in works which can not be destroyed without the most ruinous consequences to the parties who have embarked their fortunes in the, it is but sheer justice to them that the same duty of 1816 should be continued so long as a revenue is required to carry on the Government, and it is derived from the same source.

All which is respectfully submitted.

Parish of Jefferson

Theophilus Fortier
P. Fegende
O. Brixner
G. Fagende, Haray & Co.
C. Zeringue
J. Baptiste
Faustin Fortier
Edou Fortier
Eugene Fortier
L. C. Le Breton d'Argency
P. Leonard
B. Saulet
S. Labrancheo
Theranu Drouet
Charles Fortier
Edward Drouet
B. S. Mesm Le Breton
E. S. L. Le Breton
Destrehan
Cr. Lefevre
S. B. Drouet
John Dusuaud
M. A. Halphen