It is further obvious that Congress was deeply impressed, about that time, (that is, from 1838 to 1842,) with the importance of confiding the execution of the Tariff laws exclusively to the Fiscal Department, from the very positive and unequivocal terms of the 23d and 24th sections of the Tariff act of the 30th of August, 1842, and particularly the latter, which says: "It shall be the duty of all Collectors, and other officers of the Customs, to execute and carry into effect all instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury, relative to the execution of the Revenue laws; and in case any difficulty shall arise as to the true construction or meaning of any part of such Revenue laws, the decision of the Secretary of the Treasury shall be conclusive and binding upon all such Collectors and other officers of the Customs." But the present incumbent of the Fiscal Department, the Hon. R. J. Walker, in adverting to this section of the act of 1842, in his circular of the 6th July, 1847, forbears to execute the broad and comprehensive authority thus conferred on the Department. In that circular he says: "The regula tions of the Department are made by Congress final and conclusive, upon all classes of appraisers, whether acting as such under an appointment from the President, from the Secretary of the Treasury, or from the Collector of the port. Were it otherwise, and merchant appraisers should not conform to the regulations of the Department, the rates of duties would vary in every port of the Union; and that clause of the Constitution, requiring that all duties shall be uniform throughout the United States,' would become a dead letter. The law would be construed in one way by merchant appraisers in one port, and differently in others; and if there was no authority to control their constructions of the law, which would be binding on all the ports, it would be impossible to carry into effect this clause of the Constitution. To prevent this difficulty, the provisions of the law just quoted were enacted; and the decision of the Secretary of the Treasury as to the true construction or meaning of any part of the Revenue laws was made conclusive and binding. This construction of the Department must be binding upon all who perform any duties under these laws, from whatever source their appointment or authority may be derived; and from such decision there can be no appeal, except to the judicial powers provided by the Constitution. The Department, notwithstanding the broad language and comprehensive authority conferred upon it by Congress, feels bound to adopt the construction of the Revenue laws pronounced in solemn adjudications by the Supreme Court of the United States."

There is certainly great wisdom in this forbearance of the Secretary of the Treasury to execute the broad language and comprehensive authority thus conferred on him, until Congress shall say, in so many specific words, that, in all such cases there shall be no appeal from the decision of the Fiscal Department to the Judicial Power, unless the goods be warehoused and withheld from sale "as duty paying goods," until the decision of the suits respectively.

But why should there be an appeal, at all, in such cases to the Judiciary, from the decisions of the Executive, made up of the official judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury, whose act is virtually the act of the President, fortified by the opinion of their legal adviser, the Attorney General, all of whom are of co-ordinate standing and character with the Judiciary, and have the most indisputable ground of preference wherever they are the peculiar administrators of any particular description of laws Moreover, such appeals in these cases are very impolitic, inexpedient, and vexatious, as regards the purposes of justice, being either unnecessary to their accomplishment, or subversive of them. When the judicial decisions affirm the previous decisions of the Fiscal Department, they are unnecessary; when they reverse them, they subvert the authority conferred on the Secretary of the Treasury and his legal adviser the Attorney General, in executing those laws under the direction of the President, and confer a bounty on the importers at the cost of the United States and the consumers of the goods. For, when duties are paid under protest, with the intention to institute suit to have the same refunded, the goods, on which such duties have been paid, are, in the course of trade, put on sale by the importers in the same manner as other duty-paying goods. They change hands, go into the retail market, and are finally consumed by the community at large at the prices of duty-paying goods; whereby the importers indemnify themselves of the duty they have paid on them, for the very simple reason that they would not be justified by prudence, were they to take off the amount of duty in anticipation of having it refunded under a verdict against the United States. Who, then, are benefited by such verdicts? Who are benefited by the duty being collected in the first instance, and ultimately refunded? In every sense it enures to the sole benefit of the importers. For, in all such cases, the consumers pay the same for their purchases that they would do if the Treasury decisions had not been reversed; and the United States are saddled with the expense of the suits; whilst the importers-generally foreign merchants-pocket the proceeds of sales as "duty-paying goods," and "the refunded duties" also; the latter being an addition to the duplicate amount of duties which they had already received from the consumers-generally American citizens-who are thus taxed for the benefit of foreign importers and manufacturers. Will the American people object to a reformation of this special mischief in the administration of the Revenue laws, from a mistaken supposition that no branch of the Government can do justice but the judicial-whose instructions to jurors are, nevertheless, often countervailed in these cases by the sinister interests of local jurors and witnesses adverse to true justice, and the interests of the Government, and the community at large?

It can be easily conceived that I now leave this subject with a very different impression from that under which I took it up. I am satis. fied, from my own inquiries in regard to it, that there are very few who have examined into it, except on merely occasional questions, and those rather superficially, or isolatedly, being commensurate only with the special occasion, without any view to a general survey of the whole ground, for the purpose of systematic and consistent adjustment of its parts. And I am equally convinced that there is scarcely a subject, coming within the constitutional range of legislation, that calls more imperiously for the profound consideration of statesmen, to enable them to make the requisite provisions for the complete vindication of justice and right between man and man in the social state, whether individually or in their corporate capacities, so that their reciprocal responsibilities be rendered perfect, and all exclusive privileges laid aside, before the judicial tribunals of the country; and finally, the whole judicial power being, in detail, so classified and defined as to render collisions of jurisdiction impracticable between the delegated powers of the Federal Government and the residuary sovereignties of the several States. The omissions that exist in some respects, the want of uniformity in others, and the conflictions that are occasionally arising and continually liable to come up, between the complicated authorities of this Union, both State and Federal, local and general, are vastly more numerous, and in some cases, greatly more momentary, than many are aware of. To make a scale of these would be a pleasing task, and not without the promise of useful results; but such an undertaking must be deferred for a more convenient and appropriate occasion. Though all these are not confined within or reduced to the judicial power, those are the most mischievous which are held aloof from it. And yet, when they shall be resolved into the province of the Judiciary, the remedy may not be complete whilst they are without such order and discrimination as shall define the appropriate location and relative bearing of each component part of the great system of jurispru dence, both State and Federal.

POSTSCRIPT.

Having, in the concluding paragraph of the Introduction, referred to a postscript at the end of the volume, for a due notice of the ILLUS TRATIVE DESIGNS prefixed to this work, I have, upon further reflection, determined that it would be an act of supererogation to enter into a abored account of the several subjects therein embodied; as the mere titles of the two plates, and the subjects more particularly specified in each, together with the great abundance of public documents and discussions, showing the desultory action of the Government thereon in all time, must afford a better illustration than can be conveyed in a few brief remarks. To understand, then, that the chief object in these designs was to concentrate the subjects, so as to fix the attention, and give them a location and a name as great national objects, must suffice

here.

INDEX.

[That the following may not be considered a very scanty Index for such a volume, it is deemed proper to make a few remarks upon it-
taking also into consideration certain matters connected with the extent to which it would have run out, if the second part of the original plan
had not been otherwise disposed of.

Whilst preparing an alphabetical Index of the various revenue subjects embraced in the foregoing pages, it struck me that it would be
most satisfactory to throw it into TWO PARTS OF DIVISIONS, with the view of assigning to the first part all the decisions, instructions, and
regulations, directly or indirectly connected with the revenue, exclusively of those which relate to the rates of duty not clearly ascertained by
law, in order to assign these latter to the second part of such Index. Accordingly, that plan was adopted. And although the former sub
jects comprise nearly the whole of the work, the DIVISION (or Index) relating thereto, as given below, is very brief, taken comparatively
with the details appropriate to the other DIVISION, Owing to the facilities afforded by the classification of the details of the former, in being
referred to in entire classes, as will be perceived in an instant by running the eye over any portion of it. Whereas, the other DIVISION (not
here given) comprises the references to the insulated or individual rates of duty, ad valorem and specific, or exemptions from duty, as de-
termined from time to time by the Department, for the government of officers of the customs, to clear up the doubts and uncertainties of
the law; thereby calling for an enumeration vastly extended, and out of all proportion to that small section of the work which relates to
this particular subject-being section 7 of chapter 3, comprising but four pages of the work, and referring only to forty circulars in which
these decisions and instructions are contained. The vast number of articles of merchandise to which these decisions relate, in many in-
stances oft-repeated, and not unfrequently reversed for the same article, under different laws and adverse decisions of courts, amounting to
about nine hundred such decisions, may well excite the astonishment of those who are not conversant with the difficulty of adjusting a
tariff of duties that should be so clear and intelligible in the law itself as to defy the artifices by which the ordinary legal technicalities are
liable to be evaded by manufacturers and importers. Although, then, the decisions referred to in section 7 of chapter 3 are, for the most
part, rendered obsolete-say, by various progressive causes, by recent tariff laws, and by the decisions of the Treasury, incorporating
those of the courts, alphabetically arranged and issued in the circular of the 31st December, 1847, page 404, and therefore were not tran-
scribed in section 7, only referring to the volumes of the original circular instructions compiled in the Department-yet the long list of those
decisions, and of the articles of merchandise on which they were made, might be amply worth the space it would occupy here, as an occu-
lar demonstration of the embarrassments of the Department, and offices of the customs generally, arising from the want of some rigid
standard of commercial nomenclature, which, being adopted by the laws, might counteract those dishonest evasions of them, effected chiefly
by varying the component parts of articles of manufacture, and designating them by new names. The outline or general basis of such a
nomenclature might be derived from the various departments of natural history, from which the raw materials and their simple manufac-
ture may be derived, extending the details of such nomenclature, nevertheless, to the mixed manufactures, according to the preponderance of
the materials of greatest value, &c., &c. The construction of a commercial nomenclature on such a permanent basis might ultimately
establish such a perspicuous tariff of duties as would, in a great measure, remedy the evils heretofore existing for want of it.

That DIVISION, relating to the details of decisions on doubtful rates of duty, and originally designed as the second part of this Index, being
deemed to be of no further use here than to demonstrate what may be derived from the foregoing remarks, has been handed over as an ac-
companiment to the compilation of the Circular Instructions and Decisions of the Department.]

DEBENTURES and Drawbacks, returns of, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.......
DEPOSITE of Goods in public stores, for drawback, reduction, or refunding of duties, &c.
under the Warehousing act-see Introduction, note (a)..........
of Public Moneys, regulations for the, (See Public Money)...
Also see note (a) Constitutional Treasury

DISBURSEMENTS of public money, general regulations of.....

..........

of public money deposited to the credit of the Treasurer, (consisting of the current expenses of the Gov't)
of public money not deposited to the credit of the Treasurer, (including salaries, fees, and emoluments of
officers of the Customs).

DISBURSING Agents, their accounts, &c......
DRAFTS, Treasurer's, regulations of...
DRAWBACKS, on teas, wines, spirits, &c....

and Debentures, on various accounts.........

DUTIES, tariffs of impost..

discriminating, in general, of impost, tonnage, and light money, modified or repealed by conventions with foreign
nations, and occasional refunding the same...

returns of accounts of, (see Accounts).......

paid under protest, and deposited in the Treasury, refunded under judicial decisions in favor of plaintiffs...
low ad valorem, system of see Introduction, note (b).
Mexican, system of-see Introduction, note (c)..

Also Appendix...................

.......

DYCAS'S hydrometer for proving spirits..

ENTRIES of vessels, American and foreign, and matters connected therewith, (see Commerce and Navigation)..
of goods or merchandise, and forms connected therewith......

76

204

91

xviii

172

xvi

182

222

193

191

182

91

196

96

98

102

112

136

G.

GAUGERS, their functions, accounts, &c., (see Weighers, Measurers, &c.)..

GOODS, deposite of, in public stores, (see Deposite of Goods,) for drawback, reduction, or refunding of duties, and to await the
arrival or procuring of invoices....

entries of, (see Entries)....
imported and exported, returns of.
unclaimed, to be notified to owners..
disposition and proceeds of...

.....

K.

23

228

227

2

2

54

22

240

30

210

131

193

24

51

251

55

5

32

32

31

11

235

29

27

223

84

91

xviii

418

78

42

60

67

68

14

242

76

211

135

25
297

226

28

PERMITS to unlade vessels...

Also Appendix, No. I, (S.).....

251

173

182

to whaling vessels to touch and trade at foreign ports, (used only for obtaining stores and supplies,) Appendix...
PUBLIC Money, deposite, transter, and safe-keeping of....

disbursements of, on various accounts, (see Disbursements, Accounts, &c.)...................

Also see Appendix..

established in Mexican districts in the military possession of the United States--see the Introduction, note (c.).
Also see Appendix, No. V......

TELEGRAPHS, system of, suggested.

TONNAGE of vessels, quarterly abstracts of...

duties and light money..

discriminating, &c., (see Duties).
duties and light money, refunding of.

TRADE, coasting, (see Coasting Trade,) explained.
Also see Appendix, No. I....
TRANSCRIPTS, of balances of accounts, for suit.
TREASURY Notes, proceedings in relation to..

......

...

V.

VESSELS, American, various denominations of, and explanations of forms and official documents in relation to..
Also see Appendix, No. I.......