THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM.
The cycle had come round which, periodically, and once in four years, brings up a presidential election and a tariff discussion. The two events seemed to be inseparable; and this being the fourth year from the great tariff debate of 1828, and the fourth year from the last presidential election, and being the long session which precedes the election, it was the one in regular course in which the candidates and their friends make the greatest efforts to operate upon public opinion through the measures which they propose, or oppose in Congress. Added to this, the election being one on which not only a change of political parties depended, but also a second trial of the election in the House of Representatives in 1824-'25, in which Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay triumphed over General Jackson, with the advantage on their side now of both being in Congress: for these reasons this session became the most prolific of party topics, and of party contests, of any one ever seen in the annals of our Congress. And certainly there were large subjects to be brought before the people, and great talents to appear in their support and defence. The renewal of the national bank charter—the continuance of the protective system—internal improvement by the federal government—division of the public land money, or of the lands themselves—colonization society—extension of pension list—Georgia and the Cherokees—Georgia and the Supreme Court—imprisoned missionaries—were all brought forward, and pressed with zeal, by the party out of power; and pressed in a way to show their connection with the presidential canvass, and the reliance upon them to govern its result. The party in power were chiefly on the defensive; and it was the complete civil representation of a military attack and defence of a fortified place—a siege—with its open and covert attacks on one side, its repulses and sallies on the other—its sappings and minings, as well as its open thundering assaults. And this continued for seven long months—from December to July; fierce in the beginning, and becoming more so from day to day until the last hour of the last day of the exhausted session. It was the most fiery and eventful session that I had then seen—or since seen, except one—the panic session of 1834-'35.
The two leading measures in this plan of operations—the bank and the tariff—were brought forward simultaneously and quickly—on the same day, and under the same lead. The memorial for the renewal of the bank charter was presented in the Senate on the 9th day of January: on the same day, and as soon as it was referred, Mr. Clay submitted a resolution in relation to the tariff, and delivered a speech of three days' duration in support of the American system. The President, in his message, and in view of the approaching extinction of the public debt—then reduced to an event of certainty within the ensuing year—recommended the abolition of duties on numerous articles of necessity or comfort, not produced at home. Mr. Clay proposed to make the reduction in subordination to the preservation of the "American system" and this opened the whole question of free trade and protection; and occasioned that field to be trod over again with all the vigor of a fresh exploration. Mr. Clay opened his great speech with a retrospect of what the condition of the country was for seven years before the tarriff of 1824, and what it had been since—the first a period of unprecedented calamity, the latter of equally unprecedented prosperity:—and he made the two conditions equally dependent upon the absence and presence of the protective system. He said:
"Eight years ago, it was my painful duty to present to the other House of Congress an unexaggerated picture of the general distress pervading the whole land. We must all yet remember some of its frightful features. We all know that the people were then oppressed and borne down by an enormous load of debt; that the value of property was at the lowest point of depression; that ruinous sales and sacrifices were every where made of real estate; that stop laws and relief laws and paper money were adopted to save the people from impending destruction; that a deficit in the public revenue existed, which compelled government to seize upon, and divert from its legitimate object, the appropriation to the sinking fund, to redeem the national debt; and that our commerce and navigation were threatened with a complete paralysis. In short, sir, if I were to select any term of seven years since the adoption of the present constitution, which exhibited a scene of the most wide-spread dismay and desolation, it would be exactly the term of seven years which immediately preceded the establishment of the tariff of 1824."
This was a faithful picture of that calamitous period, but the argument derived from it was a two-edged sword, which cut, and deeply, into another measure, also lauded as the cause of the public prosperity. These seven years of national distress which immediately preceded the tariff of 1824, were also the same seven years which immediately followed the establishment of the national bank; and which, at the time it was chartered, was to be the remedy for all the distress under which the country labored: besides, the protective system was actually commenced in the year 1816—contemporaneously with the establishment of the national bank. Before 1816, protection to home industry had been an incident to the levy of revenue; but in 1816 it became an object. Mr. Clay thus deduced the origin and progress of the protective policy:
"It began on the ever memorable 4th day of July—the 4th of July, 1789. The second act which stands recorded in the statute book, bearing the illustrious signature of George Washington, laid the corner stone of the whole system. That there might be no mistake about the matter, it was then solemly proclaimed to the American people and to the world, that it was necessary for "the encouragement and protection of manufactures," that duties should be laid. It is in vain to urge the small amount of the measure of protection then extended. The great principle was then established by the fathers of the constitution, with the father of his country at their head. And it cannot now be questioned, that, if the government had not then been new and the subject untried, a greater measure of protection would have been applied, if it had been supposed necessary. Shortly after, the master minds of Jefferson and Hamilton were brought to act on this interesting subject. Taking views of it appertaining to the departments of foreign affairs and of the treasury, which they respectively filled, they presented, severally, reports which yet remain monuments of their profound wisdom, and came to the same conclusion of protection to American industry. Mr. Jefferson argued that foreign restrictions, foreign prohibitions, and foreign high duties, ought to be met, at home, by American restrictions, American prohibitions, and American high duties. Mr. Hamilton, surveying the entire ground, and looking at the inherent nature of the subject, treated it with an ability which, if ever equalled, has not been surpassed, and earnestly recommended protection.
"The wars of the French revolution commenced about this period, and streams of gold poured into the United States through a thousand channels, opened or enlarged by the successful commerce which our neutrality enabled us to prosecute. We forgot, or overlooked, in the general prosperity, the necessity of encouraging our domestic manufactures. Then came the edicts of Napoleon, and the British orders in council; and our embargo, non-intercourse, non-importation, and war, followed in rapid succession. These national measures, amounting to a total suspension, for the period of their duration, of our foreign commerce, afforded the most efficacious encouragement to American manufactures; and accordingly, they every where sprung up. Whilst these measures of restriction and this state of war continued the manufacturers were stimulated in their enterprises by every assurance of support, by public sentiment, and by legislative resolves. It was about that period (1808) that South Carolina bore her high testimony to the wisdom of the policy, in an act of her legislature, the preamble of which, now before me, reads: 'Whereas the establishment and encouragement of domestic manufactures is conducive to the interest of a State, by adding new incentives to industry, and as being the means of disposing, to advantage, the surplus productions of the agriculturist: And whereas, in the present unexampled state of the world, their establishment in our country is not only expedient, but politic, in rendering us independent of foreign nations.' The legislature, not being competent to afford the most efficacious aid, by imposing duties on foreign rival articles, proceeded to incorporate a company.
"Peace, under the Treaty of Ghent, returned in 1815, but there did not return with it the golden days which preceded the edicts levelled at our commerce by Great Britain and France. It found all Europe tranquilly resuming the arts and the business of civil life. It found Europe no longer the consumer of our surplus, and the employer of our navigation, but excluding, or heavily burdening, almost all the productions of our agriculture and our rivals in manufactures, in navigation, and in commerce. It found our country, in short, in a situation totally different from all the past—new and untried. It became necessary to adapt our laws, and especially our laws of impost, to the new circumstances in which we found ourselves. It has been said that the tariff of 1816 was a measure of mere revenue; and that it only reduced the war duties to a peace standard. It is true that the question then was, how much, and in what way, should the double duties of the war be reduced? Now, also, the question is, on what articles shall the duties be reduced so as to subject the amount of the future revenue to the wants of the government? Then it was deemed an inquiry of the first importance, as it should be now, how the reduction should be made, so as to secure proper encouragement to domestic industry. That this was a leading object in the arrangement of the tariff of 1816, I well remember, and it is demonstrated by the language of Mr. Dallas.
"The subject of the American system was again brought up in 1820, by the bill reported by the chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, now a member of the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the principle was successfully maintained by the representatives of the people; but the bill which they passed was defeated in the Senate. It was revived in 1824, the whole ground carefully and deliberately explored, and the bill then introduced, receiving all the sanctions of the constitution. This act of 1824 needed amendments in some particulars, which were attempted in 1828, but ended in some injuries to the system; and now the whole aim was to save an existing system—not to create a new one."
And he summed up his policy thus:
"1. That the policy which we have been considering ought to continue to be regarded as the genuine American system.
"2. That the free trade system, which is proposed as its substitute, ought really to be considered as the British colonial system.
"3. That the American system is beneficial to all parts of the Union, and absolutely necessary to much the larger portion.
"4. That the price of the great staple of cotton, and of all our chief productions of agriculture, has been sustained and upheld, and a decline averted by the protective system.
"5. That, if the foreign demand for cotton has been at all diminished by the operation of that system, the diminution has been more than compensated in the additional demand created at home.
"6. That the constant tendency of the system, by creating competition among ourselves, and between American and European industry, reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured objects.
"7. That, in point of fact, objects within the scope of the policy of protection have greatly fallen in price.
"8. That if, in a season of peace, these benefits are experienced, in a season of war, when the foreign supply might be cut off, they would be much more extensively felt.
"9. And, finally, that the substitution of the British colonial system for the American system, without benefiting any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactures, general impoverishment, and ultimate ruin."
Mr. Clay was supported in his general views by many able speakers—among them, Dickerson and Frelinghuysen of New Jersey; Ewing of Ohio; Holmes of Maine; Bell of New Hampshire; Hendricks of Indiana; Webster and Silsbee of Massachusetts; Robbins and Knight of Rhode Island; Wilkins and Dallas of Pennsylvania; Sprague of Maine; Clayton of Delaware; Chambers of Maryland; Foot of Connecticut. On the other hand the speakers in opposition to the protective policy were equally numerous, ardent and able. They were: Messrs. Hayne and Miller of South Carolina; Brown and Mangum of North Carolina; Forsyth and Troup of Georgia; Grundy and White of Tennessee; Hill of New Hampshire; Kane of Illinois; Benton of Missouri; King and Moore of Alabama; Poindexter of Mississippi; Tazewell and Tyler of Virginia; General Samuel Smith of Maryland. I limit the enumeration to the Senate. In the House the subject was still more fully debated, according to its numbers; and like the bank question, gave rise to heat; and was kept alive to the last day.
General Smith of Maryland, took up the question at once as bearing upon the harmony and stability of the Union—as unfit to be pressed on that account as well as for its own demerits—avowed himself a friend to incidental protection, for which he had always voted, and even voted for the act of 1816—which he considered going far enough; and insisted that all "manufacturers" were doing well under it, and did not need the acts of 1824 and 1828, which were made for "capitalists"—to enable them to engage in manufacturing; and who had not the requisite skill and care, and suffered, and called upon Congress for more assistance. He said: