The State bank system was a chaos of ruin, in which the business of the country was again and again ingulfed. The people rejoice that it has been swept away, and they will not consent to its re-establishment. In its place we have the National-bank system, based on the bonds of the United States, and sharing the safety and credit of the government. Their notes are made secure, first, by a deposit of government bonds, worth at least ten per cent. more than the whole value of the notes; second, by a paramount lien on all the assets of the banks; third, the personal liability of all the shareholders to an amount equal to the capital they hold; and, fourth, the absolute guarantee by the government to redeem them at the National Treasury if the banks fail to do so. Instead of seven thousand different varieties of notes, as in the State system, we have now but ten varieties, each uniform in character and appearance. Like our flag, they bear the stamp of nationality, and are honored in every part of the Union.
[From a Speech in the House, April 1, 1870.]
As an abstract theory of political economy free-trade has many advocates, and much can be said in its favor; nor will it be denied that the scholarship of modern times is largely on that side; that a large majority of the great thinkers of the present day are leading in the direction of what is called free-trade.
While this is true, it is equally undeniable that the principle of protection has always been recognized and adopted in some form or another by all nations, and is to-day, to a greater or less extent, the policy of every civilized government....
Protection, in its practical meaning, is that provident care for the industry and development of our own country which will give our own people an equal chance in the pursuit of wealth, and save us from the calamity of being dependent upon other nations with whom we may any day be at war.
In so far as the doctrine of free-trade is a protest against the old system of oppression and prohibition, it is a healthy and worthy sentiment. But underlying all theories, there is a strong and deep conviction in the minds of a great majority of our people in favor of protecting American industry....
[Speech on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, April 4, 1871.]
... Nothing more aptly describes the character of our Republic than the solar system, launched into space by the hand of the Creator, where the central sun is the great power around which revolve all the planets in their appointed orbits. But while the sun holds in the grasp of its attractive power the whole system, and imparts its light and heat to all, yet each individual planet is under the sway of laws peculiar to itself.
Under the sway of terrestrial laws, winds blow, waters flow, and all the tenantries of the planet live and move. So, sir, the States move on in their orbits of duty and obedience, bound to the central government by this Constitution, which is their supreme law; while each State is making laws and regulations of its own, developing its own energies, maintaining its own industries, managing its local affairs in its own way, subject only to the supreme but beneficent control of the Union. When State-rights ran mad, put on the form of secession, and attempted to drag the States out of the Union, we saw the grand lesson, taught in all the battles of the late war, that a State could no more be hurled from the Union, without ruin to the nation, than could a planet be thrown from its orbit without dragging after it, to chaos and ruin, the whole solar universe.