Levi Woodbury

“ If the appraisers could not be called on to estimate the true value of the wool, when imported at low prices, but the value in the invoice was alone to guide, the revenue on all wool was manifestly liable to be lost, or the treasury greatly defrauded, by the article being put in the invoice at a price below the actual value, in order to introduce it free. ”

“ Any incidental protection, contemplated from the duty, to the growth of finer and more valuable wools in this country, would also be thus exposed to total defeat by the importation of this last kind at a valuation so low as to escape any duty whatever. ”

“ The utility of appraisers in such a case is even more apparent and important than in most others, because the value of wool is uncertain, fluctuating, and liable to be concealed by many ingenious devices,-lowering the prices in the invoice, and others putting different qualities of wool in the same bale, or bringing it in mixed with dirt and burrs. ”