CHAPTER IX._Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

The Tariff Question in its Relation to the Political Revolution of

1860.--A Century's Experience as to Best Mode of levying Duties.--

Original Course of Federal Government in Regard to Revenue.--First

Tariff Act.--The Objects defined in a Preamble.--Constitutional

Power to adopt Protective Measure.--Character of Early Discussions.

--The Illustrious Men who participated.--Mr. Madison the Leader.--

The War Tariff of 1812.--Its High Duties.--The Tariff of 1816.--

Interesting Debate upon its Provisions.--Clay, Webster, and Calhoun

take part.--Business Depression throughout the Country.--Continues

until the Enactment of the Tariff of 1824.--Protective Character

of that Tariff.--Still Higher Duties levied by the Tariff of 1828.

--Southern Resistance to the Protective Principle.--Mr. Calhoun

leads the Nullification Movement in South Carolina.--Compromise

effected on the Tariff Question.--Financial Depression follows.--

Panic of 1837.--Protective Tariff passed in 1842.--Free-trade

Principles triumph with the Election of President Polk.--Tariff of

1846.--Prosperous Condition of the Country.--Differences of Opinion

as to the Causes.--Surplus Revenue.--Plethoric Condition of the

Treasury.--Enactment of the Tariff of 1857.--Both Parties support

it in Congress.--Duties lower than at Any Time since the War of

1812.--Panic of 1857.--Dispute as to its causes.--Protective and

Free-trade Theories as presented by their Advocates.--Connection

of the Tariff with the Election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency.

--General Review.

The Slavery question was not the only one which developed into a

chronic controversy between certain elements of Northern opinion

and certain elements of Southern opinion. A review of the sectional

struggle would be incomplete if it did not embrace a narrative of

those differences on the tariff which at times led to serious

disturbance, and, on one memorable occasion, to an actual threat

of resistance to the authority of the government. The division

upon the tariff was never so accurately defined by geographical

lines as was the division upon slavery; but the aggressive elements

on each side of both questions finally coalesced in the same States,

North and South. Massachusetts and South Carolina marched in the

vanguard of both controversies; and the States which respectively

followed on the tariff issue were, in large part, the same which

followed on the slavery question, on both sides of Mason and Dixon's

line. Anti-slavery zeal and a tariff for protection went hand in

hand in New England, while pro-slavery principles became nearly

identical with free-trade in the Cotton States. If the rule had

its exception, it was in localities where the strong pressure of

special interest was operating, as in the case of the sugar-planter

of Louisiana, who was willing to concede generous protection to

the cotton-spinner of Lowell if he could thereby secure an equally

strong protection, in his own field of enterprise, against the

pressing competition of the island of Cuba.

PROTECTION AND FREE-TRADE SECTIONAL.

The general rule, after years of experimental legislation, resolved

itself into protection in the one section and free-trade in the

other. And this was not an unnatural distinction. Zeal against

slavery was necessarily accompanied by an appreciation of the

dignity of free labor; and free labor was more generously remunerated

under the stimulus of protective laws. The same considerations

produced a directly opposite conclusion in the South, where those

interest in slave labor could not afford to build up a class of

free laborers with high wages and independent opinions. The question

was indeed one of the kind not infrequently occurring in the

adjustment of public policies where the same cause is continually

producing different and apparently contradictory effects when the

field of its operation is changed.

The issues growing out of the subject of the tariff were, however,

in many respects entirely distinct from the slavery question. The

one involved the highest moral considerations, the other was governed

solely by expediency. Whether one man could hold property in

another was a question which took deep hold of the consciences of

men, and was either right or wrong in itself. But whether the rate

of duty upon a foreign import should be increased or lowered was

a question to be settled solely by business and financial

considerations. Slavery in the United States, as long experience

had proved, could be most profitably employed in the cultivation

of cotton. The cost of its production, in the judgment of those

engaged in it, was increased by the operation of a tariff, whereas

its price, being determined by the markets of the world, derived

no benefit from protective duties. The clothing of the slave, the

harness for the horses and mules, the ploughs, the rope, the bagging,

the iron ties, were all, they contended, increased in price to the

planter without any corresponding advance in the market value of

the product. In the beginning of the controversy it was expected

that the manufacture of cotton would grow up side by side with its

production, and that thus the community which produced the fibre

would share in the profit of the fabric. During this period the

representatives from the Cotton States favored high duties; but as

time wore on, and it became evident that slave-labor was not adapted

to the factory, and that it was undesirable if not impossible to

introduce free white labor with remunerative wages side by side

with unpaid slave-labor, the leading minds of the South were turned

against the manufacturing interest, and desired to legislate solely

in aid of the agricultural interest.

It was this change in the South that produced the irritating

discussions in Congress,--discussions always resulting in sectional

bitterness and sometimes threatening the public safety. The tariff

question has in fact been more frequently and more elaborately

debated than any other issue since the foundation of the Federal

Government. The present generation is more familiar with questions

relating to slavery, to war, to reconstruction; but as these

disappear by permanent adjustment the tariff returns, and is eagerly

seized upon by both sides to the controversy. More than any other

issue, it represents the enduring and persistent line of division

between the two parties which in a generic sense have always existed

in the United States;--the party of strict construction and the

party of liberal construction, the party of State Rights and the

party of National Supremacy, the party of stinted revenue and

restricted expenditure, and the party of generous income with its

wise application to public improvement; the part, in short, of

Jefferson as against the party of Hamilton, the party of Jackson

as against that of Clay, the party of Buchanan and Douglas as

against that of Lincoln and Seward. Taxes, whether direct or

indirect, always interest the mass of mankind, and the differences

of the systems by which they shall be levied and collected will

always present an absorbing political issue. Public attention may

be temporarily engrossed by some exigent subject of controversy,

but the tariff alone steadily and persistently recurs for agitation,

and for what is termed settlement. Thus far in our history,

settlement has only been the basis of new agitation, and each

successive agitation leads again to new settlement.

EXPERIENCE IN TARIFF LEGISLATION.

After the experience of nearly a century on the absorbing question

of the best mode of levying duties on imports, the divergence of

opinion is as wide and as pronounced as when the subject first

engaged the attention of the Federal Government. Theories on the

side of high duties and theories on the side of low duties are

maintained with just as great vigor as in 1789. In no question of

a material or financial character has there been so much interest

displayed as in this. On a question of sentiment and of sympathy

like that of slavery, feeling is inevitable; but it has been matter

of surprise that the adjustment of a scale of duties on importations

of foreign merchandise should be accompanied, as it often has been,

by displays of excitement often amounting to passion.

The cause is readily apprehended when it is remembered that the

tariff question is always presented as one not merely affecting

the general prosperity, but as specifically involving the question

of bread to the millions who are intrusted with the suffrage. The

industrial classes study the question closely; and, in many of the

manufacturing establishments of the country, the man who is working

for day wages will be found as keenly alive to the effect of a

change in the protective duty as the stockholder whose dividends

are to be affected. Thus capital and labor coalesce in favor of

high duties to protect the manufacturer, and, united, they form a

political force which has been engaged in an economic battle from

the foundation of the government. Sometimes they have suffered

signal defeat, and sometimes they have gained signal victories.

The landmarks which have been left in a century of discussion and

of legislative experiment deserve a brief reference for a better

understanding of the subject to-day. Our financial experience has

been practically as extended as that of the older nations of Europe.

When the Republic was organized, Political Economy as understood

in the modern sense was in its elementary stage, and indeed could

hardly be called a science. Systems of taxation were everywhere

crude and ruthless, and were in large degree fashioned after the

Oriental practice of mulcting the man who will pay the most and

resist the least. Adam Smith had published his "Enquiry into the

Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" in the year of the

Declaration of Independence. Between that time and the formation

of the Federal Government his views had exerted no perceptible

influence on the financial system of England. British industries

were protected by the most stringent enactments of Parliament, and

England was the determined enemy not only of free trade but of fair

trade. The emancipated Colonies found therefore in the mother

country the most resolute foe to their manufacturing and commercial

progress. American statesmen exhibited wisdom, moderation, and

foresight in overcoming the obstacles to the material prosperity

of the new Republic.

When the administration of Washington was organized in 1789, the

government which he represented did not command a single dollar of

revenue. They inherited a mountain of debt from the Revolutionary

struggle, they had no credit, and the only representative of value

which they controlled was the vast body of public land in the North-

west Territory. But this was unavailable as a resource for present

needs, and called for expenditure in the extensive surveys which

were a prerequisite to sale and settlement. In addition therefore

to every other form of poverty, the new government was burdened in

the manner so expressively described as _land poor_, which implies

the ownership of a large extent of real estate constantly calling

for heavy outlay, and yielding no revenue. The Federal Government

had one crying need, one imperative demand,--money!

An immediate system of taxation was therefore required, and the

newly organized Congress lost no time in proceeding to the

consideration of ways and means. As soon as a quorum of each branch

of Congress was found to be present, the House gave its attention

to the pressing demand for money. They did not even wait for the

inauguration of President Washington, but began nearly a month

before that important event to prepare a revenue bill which might,

at the earliest moment, be ready for the Executive approval. Duties

on imports obviously afforded the readiest resource, and Congress

devoted itself with assiduous industry to the consideration of that

form of revenue. With the exception of an essential law directing

the form of oath to be taken by the Federal officers, the tariff

Act was the first passed by the new government. It was enacted

indeed two months in advance of the law creating a Treasury

Department, and providing for a Secretary thereof. The need of

money was indeed so urgent that provision was made for raising it

by duties on imports before the appointment of a single officer of

the Cabinet was authorized. Even a Secretary of State, whose first

duty it was to announce the organization of the government to

foreign nations, was not nominated for a full month after the Act

imposing duties had been passed.

THE TARIFF ENACTED BY FIRST CONGRESS.

All the issues involved in the new Act were elaborately and

intelligently debated. The first Congress contained a large

proportion of the men who had just before been engaged in framing

the Federal Constitution, and who were therefore fresh from the

councils which had carefully considered and accurately measured

the force of every provision of that great charter of government.

It is therefore a fact of lasting importance that the first tariff

law enacted under the Federal Government set forth its object in

the most succinct and explicit language. It opened, after the

excellent fashion of that day, with a stately preamble beginning

with the emphatic "whereas," and declaring that "it is necessary

for the support of government, for the discharge of the debts of

the United States, _and for the encouragement and protection of

manufactures_, that duties be laid on imported goods, wares, and

merchandise." Among the men who agreed to that declaration were

some of the most eminent in our history. James Madison, then young

enough to add junior to his name, was the most conspicuous; and

associated with him were Richard Henry Lee, Theodorick Bland,

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Rufus King, George Clymer, Oliver

Ellsworth, Elias Boudinot, Fisher Ames, Elbridge Gerry, Roger

Sherman, Jonathan Trumbull, Lambert Cadwalader, Thomas Fitzsimons,

the two Muhlenbergs, Thomas Tudor Tucker, Hugh Williamson, Abraham

Baldwin, Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, and many other leading men, both

from the North and the South.

It is a circumstance of curious interest that nearly, if not quite,

all the arguments used by the supporters and opponents of a protective

system were presented at that time and with a directness and ability

which have not been surpassed in any subsequent discussion. The

"_ad valorem_" system of levying duties was maintained against

"specific" rates in almost the same language employed in the

discussions of recent years. The "infant manufactures," the need

of the "fostering care of the government" for the protection of

"home industry," the advantages derived from "diversified pursuits,"

the competition of "cheap labor in Europe," were all rehearsed with

a familiarity and ease which implied their previous and constant

use in the legislative halls of the different States before the

power to levy imposts was remitted to the jurisdiction of Congress.

A picture of the industrial condition of the country at that day

can be inferred from the tariff bill first passed; and the manufactures

that were deemed worthy of encouragement are clearly outlined in

the debate. Mr. Clymer of Pennsylvania asked for a protective duty

on steel, stating that a furnace in Philadelphia "had produced

three hundred tons in two years, and with a little encouragement

would supply enough for the consumption of the whole Union." The

Pennsylvania members at the same time strenuously opposed a duty

on coal which they wished to import as cheaply as possible to aid

in the development of their iron ores. The manufacture of glass

had been started in Maryland, and the members from that State

secured a duty on the foreign article after considerable discussion,

and with the significant reservation, in deference to popular

habits, that "black quart-bottles" should be admitted free.

Mr. Madison opposed a tax on cordage, and "questioned the propriety

of raising the price of any article that entered materially into

the structure of vessels," making in effect the same argument on

that subject which has been repeated without improvement so frequently

in later years. Indigo and tobacco, two special products of the

South, were protected by prohibitory duties, while the raising of

cotton was encouraged by a duty of three cents per pound on the

imported article. Mr. Burke of South Carolina said the culture of

cotton was contemplated on a large scale in the South, "if good

seed could be procured." The manufacture of iron, wool, leather,

paper, already in some degree developed, was stimulated by the

bill. The fisheries were aided by a bounty on every barrel caught;

and the navigation interest received a remarkable encouragement by

providing that "a discount of ten per cent on all duties imposed

by this Act shall be allowed on such goods, wares, and merchandise

as shall be imported in vessels built in the United States, and

wholly the property of a citizen or citizens thereof." The bill

throughout was an American measure, designed to promote American

interests; and as a first step in a wide field of legislation, it

was characterized in an eminent degree by wisdom, by moderation,

and by a keen insight into the immediate and the distant future of

the country. The ability which framed the Constitution was not

greater than that displayed by the first generation of American

statesmen who were called to legislate under its generous provisions

and its wise restrictions.

These great statesmen proceeded in the light of facts which taught

them that, though politically separated from the mother country,

we were still in many ways dependent upon her, in as large a degree

as when we were Colonies, subject to her will and governed for her

advantage. The younger Pitt boasted that he had conquered the

Colonies as commercial dependencies, contributing more absolutely

and in larger degree to England's prosperity than before the

political connection was severed. He treated the States, after

the close of the peace of 1783, with a haughty assumption of

superiority, if not indeed with contempt--not even condescending

to accredit a diplomatic representative to the country, though John

Adams was in London as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary

from the United States. English laws of protection under the Pitt

administration were steadily framed against the development of

manufactures and navigation in America, and the tendency when the

Federal Constitution was adopted had been, in the planting States

especially, towards a species of commercial dependence which was

enabling England to absorb our trade.

TARIFF ACT APPROVED BY WASHINGTON.

The first tariff Act was therefore in a certain sense a second

Declaration of Independence; and by a coincidence which could not

have been more striking or more significant, it was approved by

President Washington on the fourth day of July, 1789. Slow as were

the modes of communicating intelligence in those days, this Act of

Congress did, in a suggestive way, arouse the attention of both

continents. The words of the preamble were ominous. The duties

levied were exceedingly moderate, scarcely any of them above fifteen

per cent, the majority not higher than ten. But the beginning was

made; and the English manufacturers and carriers saw that the power

to levy ten per cent. could at any time levy a hundred per cent.

if the interest of the new government should demand it. The separate

States had indeed possessed the power to levy imposts, but they

had never exercised it in any comprehensive manner, and had usually

adapted the rate of duty to English trade rather than to the

protection of manufacturing interests at home. The action of the

Federal Government was a new departure, of portentous magnitude,

and was so recognized at home and abroad.

It was not the percentage which aroused and disturbed England. It

was the power to levy the duty at all. In his famous speech on

American taxation in the House of Commons fifteen years before,

Mr. Burke asserted that it was "not the weight of the duty, but

the weight of the preamble, which the Americans were unable and

unwilling to bear." The tax actually imposed was not oppressive,

but the preamble implied the power to levy upon the Colonies whatever

tax the British Government might deem expedient, and this led to

resistance and to revolution. The force of the preamble was now

turned against Great Britain. She saw that the extent to which

the principle of protective duties might be carried was entirely

a matter of discretion with the young Republic whose people had

lately been her subjects and might now become her rivals. The

principle of protecting the manufactures and encouraging the

navigation of America had been distinctly proclaimed in the first

law enacted by the new government, and was thus made in a suggestive

and emphatic sense the very corner-stone of the republican edifice

which the patriots of the Revolution were aiming to construct.

The opinions of Mr. Madison as thus shown in the first legislation

by Congress are the more significant from the fact that he belonged

in the Jeffersonian school, believed in the strictest construction

of granted power, was a zealous Republican in the partisan divisions

of the day, and was always opposed to the more liberal, or, as he

would regard them, the more latitudinarian views of the Federal

party. In regard to the protection and encouragement of manufactures

there seemed to be no radical difference between parties in the

early period of the government. On that issue, to quote a phrase

used on another occasion, "they were all Federalists and all

Republicans." Mr. Hamilton's celebrated report on Manufactures,

submitted in answer to a request from the House of Representatives

of December, 1790, sustained and elaborated the views on which

Congress had already acted, and brought the whole influence of the

Executive Department to the support of a Protective Tariff. Up to

that period no minister of finance among the oldest and most advanced

countries of Europe had so ably discussed the principles on which

national prosperity was based. The report has long been familiar

to students of political economy, and has had, like all Mr. Hamilton's

work, a remarkable value and a singular application in the developments

of subsequent years.

MR. HAMILTON'S PROTECTION VIEWS.

Mr. Hamilton sustained the plan of encouraging home manufactures

by protective duties, even to the point in some instances of making

those "duties equivalent to prohibition." He did not contemplate

a prohibitive duty as the means of encouraging a manufacture not

already domesticated, but declared it "only fit to be employed when

a manufacture has made such a progress, and is in so many hands,

as to insure a due competition and an adequate supply on reasonable

terms." This argument did not seem to follow the beaten path which

leads to the protection of "infant manufactures," but rather aimed

to secure the home market for the strong and well-developed

enterprises. Mr. Hamilton did not turn back from the consequences

which his argument involved. He perceived its logical conclusions

and frankly accepted them. He considered "the monopoly of the

domestic market to its own manufacturers as the reigning policy of

manufacturing nations," and declared that "a similar policy on the

part of the United States in every proper instance was dictated by

the principles of distributive justice, certainly by the duty of

endeavoring to secure to their own citizens a reciprocity of

advantages." He avowed his belief that "the internal competition

which takes place, soon does away with every thing like monopoly,

and by degrees reduces the price of the article to the _minimum_

of a reasonable profit on the capital employed. This accords with

the reason of the thing and with experience." He contended that

"a reduction has in several instances immediately succeeded the

establishment of domestic manufacture." But even if this result

should not follow, he maintained that "in a national view a temporary

enhancement of price must always be well compensated by a permanent

reduction of it." The doctrine of protection, even with the enlarged

experience of subsequent years, has never been more succinctly or

more felicitously stated.

Objections to the enforcement of the "protective" principle founded

on a lack of constitutional power were summarily dismissed by Mr.

Hamilton as "having no good foundation." He had been a member of

the convention that formed the Constitution, and had given attention

beyond any other member to the clauses relating to the collection

and appropriation of revenue. He said the "power to raise money"

as embodied in the Constitution "is plenary and indefinite," and

"the objects for which it may be appropriated are no less comprehensive

than the payment of the public debts, the providing for the common

defense and the _general welfare_." He gives the widest scope to

the phrase "general welfare," and declares that "it is of necessity

left to the discretion of the national Legislature to pronounce

upon the objects which concern the general welfare, and for which

under that description an appropriation of money is requisite and

proper." Mr. Hamilton elaborates his argument on this head with

consummate power, and declares that "the only qualification" to

the power of appropriation under the phrase "general welfare" is

that the purpose for which the money is applied shall "be _general_,

and not _local_, its operation extending in fact throughout the

Union, and not being confined to a particular spot." The limitations

and hypercritical objections to the powers conferred by the

Constitution, both in the raising and appropriating of money,

originated in large part after the authors of that great charter

had passed away, and have been uniformly stimulated by class

interests which were not developed when the organic law was enacted.

Some details of Mr. Hamilton's report are especially interesting

in view of the subsequent development of manufacturing enterprises.

"Iron works" he represents as "greatly increasing in the United

States," and so great is the demand that "iron furnished before

the Revolution at an average of sixty-four dollars per ton" was

then sold at "eighty." Nails and spikes, made in large part by

boys, needed further "protection," as 1,800,000 pounds had been

imported the previous year. Iron was wholly made by "charcoal,"

but there were several mines of "fossil coal" already "worked in

Virginia," and "a copious supply of it would be of great value to

the iron industry." Respecting "cotton" Mr. Hamilton attached far

more consideration to its manufacture than to its culture. He

distrusted the quality of that grown at home because so far from

the equator, and he wished the new factories in Rhode Island and

Massachusetts to have the best article at the cheapest possible

rate. To this end the repeal of the three-cent duty on cotton

levied the preceding year was "indispensable." He argued that "not

being, like hemp, an universal production of the country, cotton

affords less assurance of an adequate internal supply." If the

duty levied on glass should not prove sufficient inducement to its

manufacture, he would stimulate it "by a direct bounty."

Mr. Hamilton's conceptions of an enlarged plan of "protection"

included not only "prohibitive duties," but when necessary a system

of "bounties and premiums" in addition. He was earnestly opposed

to "a capitation-tax," and declared such levies as an income-tax

to be "unavoidably hurtful to industry." Indirect taxes were

obviously preferred by him whenever they were practicable. Indeed

upon any other system of taxation he believed it would prove

impossible for the Republic of 1790 to endure the burden imposed

upon the public treasury by the funding of the debt of the Revolution.

More promptly than any other financier of that century he saw that

ten dollars could be more easily collected by indirect tax than

one dollar by direct levy, and that he could thus avoid those

burdensome exactions from the people which had proved so onerous

in Europe, and which had just aided in precipitating France into

bloody revolution.

THE WAR TARIFF ENACTED IN 1812.

Important and radical additions to the revenue system promptly

followed Mr. Hamilton's recommendations. From that time onward,

for a period of more than twenty years, additional tariff laws were

passed by each succeeding Congress, modifying and generally increasing

the rate of duties first imposed, and adding many new articles to

the dutiable list. When the war of 1812 was reached, a great but

temporary change was made in the tariff laws by increasing the

entire list of duties one hundred per cent.--simply doubling the

rate in every case. Not content with this sweeping and wholesale

increase of duty, the law provided an additional ten per cent. upon

all goods imported in foreign vessels, besides collecting an

additional tonnage-tax of one dollar and a half per ton on the

vessel. Of course this was war-legislation, and the Act was to

expire within one year after a treaty of peace should be concluded

with Great Britain. With the experience of recent days before him,

the reader does not need to be reminded that, under the stimulus

of this extraordinary rate of duties, manufactures rapidly developed

throughout the country. Importations from England being absolutely

stopped by reason of the war, and in large part excluded from other

countries by high duties, the American market was for the first

time left substantially, or in large degree, to the American

manufacturers.

With all the disadvantages which so sudden and so extreme a policy

imposed on the people, the progress for the four years of these

extravagant and exceptional duties was very rapid, and undoubtedly

exerted a lasting influence on the industrial interests of the

United States. But the policy was not one which commanded general

support. Other interests came forward in opposition. New England

was radically hostile to high duties, for the reason that they

seriously interfered with the shipping and commercial interest in

which her people were largely engaged. The natural result moreover

was a sharp re-action, in which the protective principle suffered.

Soon after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, movements were made for

a reduction of duties, and the famous tariff of 1816 was the result.

In examining the debates on that important Act, it is worthy of

notice that Mr. Clay, from an extreme Western State, was urging a

high rate of duties on cotton fabrics, while his chief opponent

was Daniel Webster, then a representative from Massachusetts. An

additional and still stranger feature of the debate is found when

Mr. Calhoun, co-operating with Mr. Clay, replied to Mr. Webster's

free-trade speech in an elaborate defense of the doctrine of

protection to our manufactures.

Mr. Calhoun spoke with enthusiasm, and gave an interesting _resume_

of the condition of the country as affected by the war with Great

Britain. He believed that the vital deficiency in our financial

condition was the lack of manufactures, and to supply that deficiency

he was willing to extend the protecting arm of the government.

"When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they

soon will be under the fostering care of the government, we shall

no longer experience these evils. The farmer will find a ready

market for his surplus products, and, what is almost of equal

consequence, a certain and cheap supply for all his wants. His

prosperity will diffuse itself through every class in the community."

Not satisfied with this unqualified support of the protective

system, Mr. Calhoun supplemented it by declaring that "to give

perfection to this state of things, it will be necessary to add as

soon as possible a system of internal improvements." Mr. Webster's

opposition to protection was based on the fact that it tended to

depress commerce and curtail the profits of the carrying-trade.

The tariff of 1816 was termed "moderately protective," but even in

that form it encountered the opposition of the commercial interest.

It was followed in the country by severe depression in all departments

of trade, not because the duties were not in themselves sufficiently

high, but from the fact that it followed the war tariff, and the

change was so great as to produce not only a re-action but a

revolution in the financial condition of the country. All forces

of industry languished. Bankruptcy was wide-spread, and the distress

between 1817 and 1824 was perhaps deeper and more general than at

any other period of our history. There was no immigration of

foreigners, and consequently no wealth from that source. There

was no market for agricultural products, and the people were

therefore unable to indulge in liberal expenditure. Their small

savings could be more profitably invested in foreign than in domestic

goods, and hence American manufactures received little patronage.

The traditions of that period, as given by the generation that

lived through it, are sorrowful and depressing. The sacrifice of

great landed estates, worth many millions could they have been

preserved for the heirs of the next generation, was a common feature

in the general distress and desolation. The continuance of this

condition of affairs had no small influence on the subsequent

division of parties. It naturally led to a change in the financial

system, and in 1824 a tariff Act was passed, materially enlarging

the scope of the Act of 1816.

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF OF 1824.

The Act of 1824 was avowedly protective in its character and was

adopted through the influence of Mr. Clay, then Speaker of the

House of Representatives. His most efficient ally on the floor

was Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania who exerted himself vigorously in

aid of the measure. Mr. Webster again appeared in the debate,

arguing against the "obsolete and exploded notion of protection,"

and carrying with him nearly the whole vote of Massachusetts in

opposition. Mr. Clay was enabled to carry the entire Kentucky

delegation for the high protective tariff, and Mr. Calhoun's views

having meanwhile undergone a radical change, South Carolina was

found to be unanimous in opposition, and cordially co-operating

with Massachusetts in support of free-trade. The effect of that

tariff was undoubtedly favorable to the general prosperity, and

during the administration of John Quincy Adams every material

interest of the country improved. The result was that the supporters

of the protective system, congratulating themselves upon the effect

of the work of 1824, proceeded in 1828 to levy still higher duties.

They applied the doctrine of protection to the raw materials of

the country, the wool, the hemp, and all unmanufactured articles

which by any possibility could meet with damaging competition from

abroad.

It was indeed an era of high duties, of which, strange as it may

seem to the modern reader, Silas Wright of New York and James

Buchanan of Pennsylvania appeared as the most strenuous defenders,

and were personally opposed in debate by John Davis of Massachusetts

and Peleg Sprague of Maine. To add to the entanglement of public

opinion, Mr. Webster passed over to the side of ultra-protection

and voted for the bill, finding himself in company with Martin Van

Buren of New York, and Thomas H. Benton of Missouri. It was an

extraordinary commingling of political elements, in which it is

difficult to find a line of partition logically consistent either

with geographical or political divisions. Mr. Webster carried with

him not more than two or three votes of the Massachusetts delegation.

His colleague in the Senate, Nathaniel Silsbee, voted against him,

and in the House such personal adherents as Edward Everett and

Isaac C. Bates recorded themselves in the negative. There was a

great deal of what in modern phase would be called "fencing for

position" in the votes on this test question of the day. The names

of no less than five gentlemen who were afterwards Presidents of

the United States were recorded in the yeas and nays on the passage

of the bill in the two Houses,--Mr. Van Buren, General Harrison,

John Tyler, in the Senate, and Mr. Polk and Mr. Buchanan in the

House.

There was a general feeling that the Act of 1828 marked a crisis

in the history of tariff discussion, and that it would in some way

lead to important results in the fate of political parties and

political leaders. Mr. Calhoun was this year elected Vice-President

of the United States, with General Jackson as President, and Mr.

Van Buren was transferred from the Senate to the State Department

as the head of Jackson's cabinet. When by his address and tact he

had turned the mind of the President against Calhoun as his successor,

and fully ingratiated himself in executive favor, the quarrel began

which is elsewhere detailed at sufficient length. In this controversy,

purely personal at the outset, springing from the clashing ambitions

of two aspiring men, the tariff of 1828, especially with the vote

of Mr. Van Buren in favor of it, was made to play an important

part. The quarrel rapidly culminated in Mr. Calhoun's resignation

of the Vice-Presidency, his leadership of the Nullification contest

in South Carolina, and his re-election to the Senate of the United

States some time before the expiration of the Vice-Presidential

term for which he had been chosen. The result was a reduction of

duties, first by the Act of July, 1832, and secondly by Mr. Clay's

famous compromise Act of March 2, 1833, in which it was provided

that by a sliding-scale all the duties in excess of twenty per

cent. should be abolished within a period of ten years. It was

this Act which for the time calmed excitement in the South, brought

Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay into kindly relations, and somewhat

separated Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay,--at least producing one of

those periods of estrangement which, throughout their public career,

alternated with the cordial friendship they really entertained for

each other.

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF OF 1842.

During the operation of this Act,--which was really an abandonment

of the protective principle,--the financial crisis of 1837 came

upon the country, and a period of distress ensued, almost equal to

that which preceded the enactment of the tariff of 1824. Many

persons, still in active business, recall with something of horror

the hardships and privations which were endured throughout the

country from 1837 to 1842. The long-continued depression produced

the revolution against the Democratic party which ended in the

overthrow of Mr. Van Buren and the election of General Harrison as

President of the United States in 1840. The Whig Congress that

came into power at the same time, proceeded to enact the law

popularly known as the tariff of 1842, which was strongly protective

in its character though not so extreme as the Act of 1828. The

vote in favor of the bill was not exclusively Whig, as some of the

Northern Democrats voted for it and some of the Southern Whigs

against it. Conspicuous among the former were Mr. Buchanan of

Pennsylvania and Mr. Wright of New York, who maintained a consistency

with their vote for the tariff of 1828. Conspicuous among Southern

Whigs against it were Berrien of Georgia, Clayton of Delaware,

Mangum of North Carolina, Merrick of Maryland, and Rives of Virginia.

The two men who above all others deserve honor for successful

management of the bill were George Evans, the brilliant and

accomplished senator from Maine, and Thomas M. T. McKennan, for

many years an able, upright, and popular representative from

Pennsylvania. John Quincy Adams, in a public speech delivered in

1843 in the town of Mr. McKennan's residence, ascribed to that

gentleman the chief credit of carrying the Protective Tariff Bill

through the House of Representatives. The vote showed, as all

tariff bills before had, and as all since have shown, that the

local interest of the constituency determines in large measure the

vote of the representative; that planting sections grow more and

more towards free-trade and manufacturing sections more and more

towards protection.

The friends of home industry have always referred with satisfaction

to the effect of the tariff of 1842 as an explicit and undeniable

proof of the value of protection. It raised the country from a

slough of despond to happiness, cheerfulness, confidence. It

imparted to all sections a degree of prosperity which they had not

known since the repeal of the tariff of 1828. The most suggestive

proof of its strength and popularity was found in the contest of

1844 between Mr. Polk and Mr. Clay, where the Democrats in the

critical Northern States assumed the advocacy of the tariff of 1842

as loudly as the supporters of Mr. Clay. Other issues overshadowed

the tariff, which was really considered to be settled, and a

President and Congress were chosen without any distinct knowledge

on the part of their constituents as to what their action might be

upon this question. The popular mind had been engrossed with the

annexation of Texas and with the dawn of the free-soil excitement;

hence protection and free-trade were in many States scarcely debated

from lack of interest, and, in the States where interest prevailed,

both parties took substantially the same side.

A deception had however been practiced in the manufacturing States

of the North, and when the administration of Mr. Polk was installed,

the friends of protection were startled by the appointment of a

determined opponent of the tariff of 1842, as Secretary of the

Treasury. Robert J. Walker was a senator from Mississippi when

the Act was passed, and was bitterly opposed to it. He was a man

of great originality, somewhat speculative in his views, and willing

to experiment on questions of revenue to the point of rashness.

He was not a believer in the doctrine of protection, was persuaded

that protective duties bore unjustly and severely upon the planting

section with which he was identified; and he came to his office

determined to overthrow the tariff Act, which he had been unable

to defeat in the Senate. Mr. Walker was excessively ambitious to

make his term in the Treasury an era in the history of the country.

He had a difficult task before him,--one from which a conservative

man would have shrunk. The tariff was undoubtedly producing a

valuable revenue; and, as the administration of Mr. Polk was about

to engage in war, revenue was what they most needed. Being about

to enter upon a war, every dictate of prudence suggested that

aggressive issues should not be multiplied in the country. But

Mr. Walker was not Secretary of War or Secretary of State, and he

was unwilling to sit quietly down and collect the revenue under a

tariff imposed by a Whig Congress, against which he had voted,

while Buchanan in directing our foreign relations, and Marcy in

conducting a successful war, would far outstrip him in public

observation and in acquiring the elements of popularity adapted to

the ambition which all three alike shared.

Mr. Walker made an elaborate report on the question of revenue,

and attacked the tariff of 1842 in a manner which might well be

termed savage. He arraigned the manufacturers as enjoying unfair

advantages,--advantages held, as he endeavored to demonstrate, at

the expense and to the detriment of the agriculturist, the mechanic,

the merchant, the ship-owner, the sailor, and indeed of almost

every industrial class. In reading Mr. Walker's report a third of

a century after it was made, one might imagine that the supporters

of the tariff of 1842 were engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud,

and that the manufacturers who profited by its duties were guilty

of some crime against the people. But extreme as were his declarations

and difficult as were the obstructions in his path, he was able to

carry his point. Mr. Buchanan, the head of the Cabinet, had voted

for the tariff of 1842, and Mr. Dallas, the Vice-President, had

steadily and ably upheld the doctrine of protection when a member

of the Senate. It was the position of Buchanan and Dallas on the

tariff that won the October election of 1844 for Francis R. Shunk

for governor of Pennsylvania, and thus assured the election of Mr.

Polk. The administration of which Buchanan and Dallas were such

conspicuous and influential members could not forswear protection

and inflict a free-trade tariff on Pennsylvania, without apparent

dishonor and the abandonment of that State to the Whigs. It was

therefore regarded not only as impracticable but as politically

impossible.

THE FREE-TRADE TARIFF OF 1846.

It was soon ascertained however that Mr. Polk sympathized with Mr.

Walker, and Mr. Buchanan was silenced and overridden. The free-

trade tariff of 1846 was passed; and Mr. Dallas, who had been

nominated because of his record as a protectionist, was subjected

to the humiliation of giving his casting vote as Vice-President in

favor of a tariff which was execrated in Pennsylvania, and which

was honestly believed to be inimical in the highest degree to the

interest of the American manufacturer and the American mechanic.

The Act had no small influence in the overthrow of the Polk

administration at the elections for the next ensuing Congress, and

in the defeat of General Cass for the Presidency in 1848. As

senator from Michigan, General Cass had voted for the bill, influenced

thereto by his Southern associates, for whom he always did so much,

and from whom he always received so little. Pennsylvania was at

that time really a Democratic State, but she punished General Cass

for his free-trade course by giving her electoral vote to Taylor.

If she had given it to Cass he would have been chosen President.

It was in connection with the tariff agitation of 1846 that Simon

Cameron originally obtained his strong hold upon the popular sympathy

and support of Pennsylvania. He was a Democrat; had long been

confidential adviser to Mr. Buchanan, and had supported Mr. Polk.

But he was a believer in the doctrine of protection; and as he had

aided in carrying Pennsylvania by declaring himself a friend to

the tariff of 1842, he maintained his faith. When the Polk

administration was organized, a vacancy was created in the Senate

by Mr. Buchanan's appointment as Secretary of State. George W.

Woodward was the regular nominee of the Democratic party for the

place. But Cameron bolted, and with the aid of Whig votes was

chosen senator. He resisted the passage of the tariff of 1846,

stood firmly and consistently for the industrial interests of his

State, cultivated an alliance with the Whigs in the Senate, and by

their aid thwarted all the attempts of the Polk administration to

interfere with his plans and purposes in Pennsylvania. The President

endeavored to heal Judge Woodward's wounds by placing him on the

bench of the Supreme Court as the successor of the eminent Henry

Baldwin. Cameron induced the Whigs to reject him, and then forced

the administration to nominate Robert C. Grier whose appointment

was personally acceptable and agreeable to him. In the successful

tactics then employed by Cameron may be found the secret of his

remarkable career as a party manager in the field in which, for a

full half-century, he was an active and indefatigable worker.

The Whig victory of 1848 was not sufficiently decisive to warrant

any attempt, even had there been desire, to change the tariff.

General Taylor had been elected without subscribing to a platform

or pledging himself to a specific measure, and he was therefore in

a position to resist and reject appeals of the ordinary partisan

character. Moreover the tariff of 1846 was yielding abundant

revenue, and the business of the country was in a flourishing

condition at the time his administration was organized. Money

became very abundant after the year 1849; large enterprises were

undertaken, speculation was prevalent, and for a considerable period

the prosperity of the country was general and apparently genuine.

After 1852 the Democrats had almost undisputed control of the

government, and had gradually become a free-trade party. The

principles embodied in the tariff of 1846 seemed for the time to

be so entirely vindicated and approved that resistance to it ceased,

not only among the people but among the protective economists, and

even among the manufacturers to a large extent. So general was

this acquiescence that in 1856 a protective tariff was not suggested

or even hinted by any one of the three parties which presented

Presidential candidates.

THE FREE-TRADE TARIFF OF 1857.

It was not surprising therefore that with a plethoric condition of

the National Treasury for two or three consecutive years, the

Democratic Congress, in the closing session of Pierce's administration,

enacted what has since been known as the tariff of 1857. By this

law the duties were placed lower then they had been at any time

since the war of 1812. The Act was well received by the people,

and was indeed concurred in by a considerable proportion of the

Republican party. The Senate had a large Democratic majority, but

in the House three parties divided the responsibility,--no one of

them having an absolute majority. The Republicans had a plurality

and had chosen Mr. Banks Speaker, but the American party held the

balance of power in the House and on several of the leading

committees. Some prominent Republicans, however, remaining true

to their old Whig traditions, opposed the reduction of duties.

Mr. Seward voted against it, but his colleague, Mr. Hamilton Fish,

voted for it. Mr. Seward represented the protective tendencies of

the country districts of New York, and Mr. Fish the free-trade

tendencies of the city. Mr. Sumner and Mr. Wilson both voted for

it, as did also Senator Allen of Rhode Island, the direct representative

of the manufacturers of that State. Mr. Bell of New Hampshire

voted for it, while Senators Collamer and Foote of Vermont voted

against it. Mr. Fessenden did not oppose it, but his colleague,

Mr. Nourse, voted against it. The Connecticut senators, Foster

and Toucey, one of each party, supported the measure.

In the House, the New-England representatives generally voted for

the bill, but Mr. Morrill of Vermont opposed it. The Pennsylvania

delegation, led by James H. Campbell and John Covode, did all in

their power to defeat it. The two Washburns, Colfax, and George G.

Dunn headed a formidable opposition from the West. Humphrey Marshall

and Samuel F. Swope of Kentucky were the only representatives from

slave States who voted in the negative; though in the Senate three

old and honored Whigs, John Bell of Tennessee, John B. Thompson of

Kentucky, and Henry S. Geyer of Missouri maintained their ancient

faith and voted against lowering the duties. It was an extraordinary

political combination that brought the senators from Massachusetts

and the senators from South Carolina, the representatives from New

England and the representatives from the cotton States, to support

the same tariff bill,--a combination which had not before occurred

since the administration of Monroe. This singular coalition

portended one of two results: Either an entire and permanent

acquiescence in the rule of free-trade, or an entire abrogation of

that system, and the revival, with renewed strength, of the doctrine

of protection. Which it should be was determined by the unfolding

of events not then foreseen, and the force of which it required

years to measure.

The one excuse given for urging the passage of the Act of 1857 was

that under the tariff of 1846 the revenues had become excessive,

and the income of the government must be reduced. But it was soon

found to be a most expensive mode of reaching that end. The first

and most important result flowing from the new Act was a large

increase in importations and a very heavy drain in consequence upon

the reserved specie of the country, to pay the balance which the

reduced shipments of agricultural products failed to meet. In the

autumn of 1857, half a year after the passage of the tariff Act,

a disastrous financial panic swept over the country, prostrating

for the time all departments of business in about the same degree.

The agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing interests were

alike and equally involved. The distress for a time was severe

and wide-spread. The stagnation which ensued was discouraging and

long continued, making the years from 1857 to 1860 extremely dull

and dispiriting in business circles throughout the Union. The

country was not exhausted and depleted as it was after the panic

of 1837, but the business community had no courage, energy was

paralyzed, and new enterprises were at a stand-still.

It soon became evident that this condition of affairs would carry

the tariff questions once more into the political arena, as an

active issue between parties. Thus far, the new Republican

organization had passively acquiesced in existing laws on the

subject; but the general distress caused great bodies of men, as

is always the case, to look to the action of the Government for

relief. The Republicans found therefore a new ground for attacking

the Democracy,--holding them responsible for the financial depression,

initiating a movement for returning to the principle and practice

of protection, and artfully identifying the struggle against slavery

with the efforts of the workingmen throughout the North to be freed

from injurious competition with the cheapened labor of Europe.

This phase of the question was presented with great force in certain

States, and the industrial classes, by a sort of instinct of self-

preservation as it seemed to them, began to consolidate their votes

in favor of the Republican party. They were made to see, by clever

and persuasive speakers, that the slave labor of the South and the

ill-paid labor of Europe were both hostile to the prosperity of

the workingman in the free States of America, and that the Republican

party was of necessity his friend, by its opposition to all the

forms of labor which stood in the wy of his better remuneration

and advancement.

REPUBLICAN PARTY FAVORS PROTECTION.

The convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln met when the feeling

against free-trade was growing, and in many States already deep-

rooted. A majority of those who composed that convention had

inherited their political creed from the Whig party, and were

profound believers in the protective teachings of Mr. Clay. But

a strong minority came from the radical school of Democrats, and,

in joining the Republican party on the anti-slavery issue, had

retained their ancient creed on financial and industrial questions.

Care was for that reason necessary in the introduction of new issues

and the imposition of new tests of party fellowship. The convention

therefore avoided the use of the word "protection," and was contented

with the moderate declaration that "sound policy requires such an

adjustment of imposts as will encourage the development of the

industrial interests of the whole country." A more emphatic

declaration might have provoked resistance from a minority of the

convention, and the friends of protection acted wisely in accepting

what was offered with unanimity, rather than continue the struggle

for a stronger creed which would have been morally weakened by

party division. They saw also that the mere form of expression

was not important, so long as the convention was unanimous on what

theologians term the "substance of doctrine." It was noted that

the vast crowd which attended the convention cheered the tariff

resolution as lustily as that which opposed the spread of slavery

into free territory. From that hour the Republican party gravitated

steadily and rapidly into the position of avowed advocacy of the

doctrine of protection. The national ticket which they presented

was composed indeed of an original Whig protectionist and an original

Democratic free-trader; but the drift of events, as will be seen,

carried both alike into the new movement for a protective system.

A review of the tariff legislation in the period between the war

of 1812 and the political revolution of 1860 exhibits some sudden

and extraordinary changes on the part of prominent political leaders

in their relation to the question. The inconsistency involved is

however more apparent than real. Perhaps it would be correct to

say that the inconsistency was justifiable in the eyes of those

who found it necessary to be inconsistent. Mr. Webster was a

persistent advocate of free-trade so long as Massachusetts was a

commercial State. But when, by the operation of laws against the

enactment of which he had in vain protested, Massachusetts became

a manufacturing State, Mr. Webster naturally and inevitably became

a protectionist. Mr. Calhoun began as a protectionist when he

hoped for the diffusion and growth of manufactures throughout all

sections alike. He became a free-trader when he realized that the

destiny of the South was to be purely agricultural, devoted to

products whose market was not, in his judgment, to be enlarged by

the tariff, and whose production was enhanced in cost by its

operation. Colonel Benton's change was similar to Mr. Calhoun's,

though at a later period, and not so abrupt or so radical. Mr. Van

Buren's shifting of position was that of a man eagerly seeking the

current of popular opinion, and ready to go with the majority of

his party. Of all the great lights, but one burned steadily and

clearly. Mr. Clay was always a protectionist, and, unlike Mr. Van

Buren, he forced his party to go with him. But as a whole, the

record of tariff legislation, from the very origin of the government,

is the record of enlightened selfishness; and enlightened selfishness

is the basis of much that is wisest in legislation.

It is natural that both sides to the tariff controversy should

endeavor to derive support for their principles from the experience

of the country. Nor can it be denied that each side can furnish

many arguments which apparently sustain its own views and theories.

The difficulty in reaching a satisfactory and impartial conclusion

arises from the inability or unwillingness of the disputants to

agree upon a common basis of fact. If the premises could be candidly

stated, there would be not trouble in finding a true conclusion.

In the absence of an agreement as to the points established, it is

the part of fairness to give a succinct statement of the grounds

maintained by the two parties to the prolonged controversy,--grounds

which have not essentially changed in a century of legislation and