Benjamin Robbins Curtis

“ Linen is itself a manufacture, a thing made by art, a cloth made of flax or hemp, not a material for manufacture. The entry made by the plaintiffs at the custom-house of their goods, as 'manufactures of linen and cotton,' was an absurd description, a vulgarity which could not change the materials of which the goods were manufactured, a stratagem which could not elude the revenue laws, nor stop the official appraisers from reporting the truth, that the goods so entered, were manufactures of cotton and flax. ”

“ There never were any rules established by acts of Congress, nor by judicial decisions, by which it was laid down as a principlo, 'that if any article were composed of two or more materials it should, to favor commerce, be rated according to that component which was subject to the lowest rate of duty.' The whole of the tariff acts of the United States proceed upon this plan 1st, enumerating the articles subjected to given rates of duty ”

“ The 11th section of the act of 30th July, 1846, enacts, 'That all acts and parts of acts repugnant to the provisions of this act be, and the same are, hereby repealed.' There is nothing in this act of 1846 repugnant to the provisions of the 20th section of the act of 30th August, 1842. They can stand together with consistency. ”