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 elabor