There are several good reasons for the passage of this bill. In the first place, it is just. I am now confining my argument to negro suffrage in the rebel States. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites? In the second place, it is a necessity in order to protect the loyal white men in the seceded States. With them the blacks would act in a body; and it is believed then, in each of said States, except one, the two united would form a majority, control the States, and protect themselves. Now they are the victims of daily murder. They must suffer constant persecution or be exiled.
Another good reason is that it would insure the ascendency of the Union party. "Do you avow the party purpose?" exclaims some horror-stricken demagogue. I do. For I believe, on my conscience, that on the continued ascendency of that party depends the safety of this great nation. If impartial suffrage is excluded in the rebel States, then every one of them is sure to send a solid rebel representation to Congress, and cast a solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their kindred Copperheads of the North, would always elect the President and control Congress. While slavery sat upon her defiant throne, and insulted and intimidated the trembling North, the South frequently divided on questions of policy between Whigs and Democrats, and gave victory alternately to the sections. Now, you must divide them between loyalists, without regard to color, and disloyalists, or you will be the perpetual vassals of the free-trade, irritated, revengeful South. For these, among other reasons, I am for negro suffrage in every rebel State. If it be just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be adopted; if it be a punishment to traitors, they deserve it.
VIII.—FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.
THE periods into which this series has been divided will furnish, perhaps, some key to the brief summary of tariff discussion in the United States which follows. For it is not at all true that tariff discussion or decision has been isolated; on the contrary, it has influenced, and been influenced by, every other phase of the national development of the country.
Bancroft has laid none too great stress on the influence of the English mercantile system in forcing the American Revolution, and on the attitude of the Revolution as an organized revolt against the English system. One of the first steps by which the Continental Congress asserted its claim to independent national action was the throwing open of American ports to the commerce of all nations—that is, to free trade. It should, however, be added that the extreme breadth of this liberality was due to the inability of Congress to impose any duties on imports; it had a choice only between absolute prohibition and absolute free trade, and it chose the latter. The States were not so limited. Both under the revolutionary Congress and under the Confederation they retained the entire duty power, and they showed no fondness for free trade. Commerce in general was light, and tariff receipts, even in the commercial States, were of no great importance; but, wherever it was possible, commercial regulations were framed in disregard of the free-trade principle. In order to retain the trade in firewood and vegetables within her own borders, New York, in 1787, even laid prohibitory duties on Connecticut and New Jersey boats; and retaliatory measures were begun by the two States attacked.
The Constitution gave to Congress, and forbade to the States, the power to regulate commerce. As soon as the Constitution came to be put into operation, the manner and objects of the regulation of commerce by Congress became a public question. Many other considerations were complicated with it. It was necessary for the United States to obtain a revenue, and this could most easily be done by a tariff of duties on imports. It was necessary for the Federalist majority to consider the party interests both in the agricultural States, which would object to protective duties, and in the States which demanded them. But the highest consideration in the mind of Hamilton and the most influential leaders of the party seems to have been the maintenance of the Union. The repulsive force of the States toward one another was still sufficiently strong to be an element of constant and recognized danger to the Union. One method of overcoming it, as a part of the whole Hamiltonian policy, was to foster the growth of manufactures as an interest entirely independent of State lines and dependent on the national government, which would throw its whole influence for the maintenance of the Union. This feeling runs through the speeches even of Madison, who prefaced his remarks by a declaration in favor of "a trade as free as the policy of nations would allow." Protection, therefore, began in the United States as an instrument of national unity, without regard to national profit; and the argument in its favor would have been quite as strong as ever to the mind of a legislator who accepted every deduction as to the economic disadvantages of protection. Arguments for its economic advantages are not wanting; but they have no such form and consistency as those of subsequent periods. The result of the discussion was the tariff act of July 4, 1789, whose preamble stated one of its objects to be "the encouragement and protection of manufactures." Its average duty, however, was but about 8.5 per cent. It was followed by other acts, each increasing the rate of general duties, until, at the outbreak of the War of 1812, the general rate was about 21 per cent. The war added about 6 per cent, to this rate.
Growth toward democracy very commonly brings a curious bias toward protection, contrasted with the fundamental free-trade argument that a protective system and a system of slave labor have identical bases. The bias toward a pronounced protective system in the United States makes its appearance with the rise of democracy; and, after the War of 1812, is complicated with party interests. New England was still the citadel of Federalism. The war and its blockade had fostered manufactures in New England; and the manufacturing interest, looking to the Democratic party for protection, was a possible force to sap the foundations of the citadel. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury, prepared, and Calhoun carried through Congress, the tariff of 1816. It introduced several protective features, the "minimum" feature, by which the imported article was assumed to have cost at least a certain amount in calculating duties, and positive protection for cottons and woollens. The duties paid under this tariff were about 30 per cent. on all imports, or 33 per cent. on dutiable goods. In 1824 and 1828, under the lead of Clay, tariffs were adopted which made the tariff of duties still higher and more systematically protective; they touched high-water mark in 1830, being 40 per cent. on all imports, or 48.8 per cent. on dutiable goods. The influence of nullification in forcing through the compromise tariff of 1833, with its regular decrease of duties for ten years, has been stated in the first volume.
Under the workings of the compromise tariff there was a steady decrease in the rate on all imports, but not in the rate on dutiable goods, the comparison being 22 per cent. on total to 32 per cent. on dutiable for 1833, and 16 per cent. on total to 32 per cent. on dutiable for 1841. The conjunction of the increase in non-dutiable imports and the approach of free trade, with general financial distress, gave the Whigs success in the elections of 1840; and in 1841 they set about reviving protection. Unluckily for them, their chosen President, Harrison, was dead, and his successor, Tyler, a Democrat by nature, taken up for political reasons by the Whigs, was deaf to Whig eloquence on the subject of the tariff. After an unsuccessful effort to secure a high tariff and a distribution of the surplus among the States, the semi-protective tariff of 1842 became law. Its result for the next four years was that the rate on dutiable goods was altered very little, while the rate on total imports rose from 16 per cent. to 26 per cent. The return of the Democrats to power was marked by the passage of the revenue tariff of 1846, which lasted, with a slight further reduction of duties in 1857, until 1861. Under its operation the rates steadily decreased until, in 1861, they were 18.14 per cent, on dutiable goods, and 11.79 per cent. on total imports.
The platform of the Republican party in the election of 1856 made no declaration for or against free trade or protection. The results of the election showed that the electoral votes of Pennsylvania and Illinois would have been sufficient to give the party a victory in 1856. Both party policy and a natural regard to its strong Whig membership dictated a return to the protective feature of the Whig policy. In March, 1860, Mr. Morrill introduced a protective tariff bill in the House of Representatives, and it passed that body; and, in June, the Republican National Convention adopted, as one of its resolutions, a declaration in favor of a protective system. The Democratic Senate postponed the Morrill bill until the following session. When it came up again for consideration, in February, 1861, conditions had changed very considerably. Seven States had seceded, taking off fourteen Senators opposed to the bill; and it was passed. It was signed by President Buchanan, March 2, 1861, and went into operation April 1, raising the rates to about 20 per cent. In August and in December, two other acts were passed, raising the rates still higher. These were followed by other increases, which ran the maximum up, in 1868, to 48 per cent. on dutiable goods, the highest rate from 1860 to date. It may be noted, however, that the rate of 1830—48.8 per cent. on dutiable goods—still retains its rank as the highest in our history.