erwise logically deduced by them, as to the re-action sure to
follow an artificial stimulus given to any department of trade.
The protectionists declining to defend the war duties as applicable
to a normal condition, find in the too sudden dropping of war rates
the mistake which precipitated the country into financial trouble.
Depression, they say, would naturally have come; but it was hastened
and increased by the inconsiderate manner in which the duties were
lowered in 1816. From that time onward the protectionists claim
that the experience of the country has favored their theories of
revenue and financial administration. The country did not revive,
or prosperity re-appear, until the protective tariff of 1824 was
enacted. The awakening of all branches of industry by that Act
was further promoted by the tariff of 1828, to which the protectionists
point as the perfected wisdom of their school. Mr. Clay publicly
asserted that the severest depression he had witnessed in the
country was during the seven years preceding the tariff of 1824,
and that the highest prosperity was during the seven years following
that Act.

The free-traders affirm that the excitement in the South and the
sectional resistance to the tariff of 1828 show the impossibility
of maintaining high duties. The protectionists reply that such an
argument is begging the question, and is simply tantamount to
admitting that protection is valuable if it can be upheld. The
protectionists point to the fact that their system was not abandoned
in 1832 upon a fair consideration of its intrinsic merits, but as
a peace-offering to those who were threatening the destruction of
the government if the duties were not lowered. Many protectionists
believe that if Mr. Clay had been willing to give to General Jackson
the glory of an absolute victory over the Nullifiers of South
Carolina, the revenue system of the country would have been very
different. They think however that the temptation to settle the
question by compromise instead of permitting Jackson to settle it
by force was perhaps too strong to be resisted by one who had so
many reasons for opposing and hating the President.

A more reasonable view held by another school of protectionists is
that Mr. Clay did the wisest possible thing in withdrawing the
tariff question from a controversy where it was complicated with
so many other issues,--some of them bitter and personal. He justly
feared that the protect