Benjamin Harrison was never a leader of his party. He had a good war record and had been Senator for a single term. His nomination was not due to his strength, but to his availability. Coming from the doubtful State of Indiana, he was likely to carry it, particularly since the Republican candidate for governor was a leader of the Grand Army of the Republic. Harrison's personal character and piety were valuable assets in a time when party leaders were under fire. Once in office he had a cold abruptness that made it easy to lose the support of associates who felt that their own importance was greater than his.
Blaine, the greatest of these associates, became Secretary of State, and soon had the satisfaction of meeting the Pan-American Congress that he had called eight years before. In his interest in larger American affairs he lost some of his keenness as a protectionist and acquired a zeal for foreign trade. With England he had another unsuccessful tilt, this time over the seals of Bering Sea.
In some of the appointments Harrison paid the party debts. Windom came back to the Treasury, although ex-Senator Platt, of New York, claimed that he had been promised it. John Wanamaker, who had raised large sums in Philadelphia to aid Quay in the campaign, became Postmaster-General. The Pension Bureau, important through the alliance with the soldiers, went to a leader of the Grand Army of the Republic, one "Corporal" Tanner, whose most famous utterance related to his intentions: "God save the surplus!"
The Fifty-first Congress, convening in December, 1889, took up with enthusiasm the mandate of the election, as the Republicans saw it, to revise the tariff in the interest of protection. It chose as Speaker Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, and revised its rules so as to expedite legislation. William McKinley prepared a revision of the tariff in the House, while another Ohioan, John Sherman, took up the matter of the trusts in the Senate.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Law was enacted in July, 1890, after nearly ten years of general discussion. Although formulated by Republicans—Sherman, Edmunds, and Hoar—it was not more distinctly a party measure than the Interstate Commerce Act had been. It relied upon the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution as its authority to declare illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations," and it provided suitable penalties for violation. The most significant debate in connection with it occurred upon an amendment offered by Representative Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, who desired to extend the scope of the prohibition, specifically, to railroads. The Senate excluded the amendment on the ground that the law was general, covering the railroads without special enumeration. The full meaning of the law remained in doubt for nearly fifteen years, for few private suitors invoked it and the Attorneys-General were not hostile to the ordinary practices of business. A great financial depression which appeared in 1893 acted well as a temporary deterrent of trusts. There was a suspicion that the law had been intended not to be enforced, but to act as a popular antidote to the McKinley Tariff Bill which was pending while it passed.
There were two reasons for a revision of the tariff in 1890. The surplus, still a reason, added $105,000,000 in 1889, and continued to embarrass the Treasury with a wealth of riches. Secondly, the election of 1888 had gone Republican, and party leaders chose to regard this as a popular condemnation of Cleveland and tariff reform, and a popular mandate for higher protection, in spite of the fact that more Americans voted for Cleveland than for Harrison. A third reason, alleged by the opposition, was the necessity of fulfilling the pledges given by Quay and the campaign managers to the manufacturers who contributed to the campaign fund,—manufacturers who were parodied as "Mary":—
"Our Mary had a little lamb,
Her heart was most intent
To make its wool, beyond its worth,
Bring 56 per cent."
In April, 1890, McKinley presented his act "to equalize the duties upon imports and to reduce the revenues." For five months Congress wrestled with the details of the bill and the issues connected with it. In June it rewarded the soldier allies of the Administration with a Dependent Pension Act which granted pensions to those who could show ninety days of service and present dependence, and which, aided by the previous laws, relieved the surplus of $1,350,000,000 in the next ten years. Early in July the Anti-Trust Act was passed. Two weeks later Congress paused in its tariff deliberations to pass the Sherman Silver Purchase Bill at the demand of Republican Senators from the Rocky Mountain States, who wanted their share of protection in this form and were so numerous as to be able to produce a deadlock.
The tariff that became a law October 1, 1890, was the first success in tariff legislation since the Civil War. It enlarged protection and reduced the revenue. The latter was done by repealing the duty on raw sugar, which had been the most remunerative item of the old tariff, and by substituting a bounty of two cents per pound to the American sugar-grower, which further relieved the surplus. The sugar clause was one of the notable features of the McKinley Bill, and was closely related to a group of duties upon agricultural imports. There had been complaint among the farmers that protection did nothing for them. The agricultural schedule was designed to silence this complaint.
Another novelty in the bill was the extension of protection to unborn industries. In the case of tin plate, the President was empowered to impose a duty whenever he should learn that American mills were ready to manufacture it. This was an application of the principle that went beyond the demands of most advocates of protection.