ive principle might be irretrievably injured
in the collision thought to be impending. He believed moreover
that the best protective lesson would be taught by permitting the
free-traders to enforce their theories for a season, trusting for
permanent triumph to the popular re-action certain to follow.
There was nothing in the legislation to show that Mr. Clay or his
followers had in any degree abandoned or changed their faith in
protective duties of their confidence in the ultimate decision of
the public judgment. The protectionists aver that the evils which
flowed from the free-trade tariff of 1833, thus forced on the
country by extraneous considerations, were incalculably great, and
negatively established the value of the tariff of 1828 which had
been so unfairly destroyed. They maintain that it broke down the
manufacturing interest, led to excessive importations, threw the
balance of trade heavily against us, drained us of our specie, and
directly led to the financial disasters of 1837 and the years
ensuing. They further declare that this distressing situation was
not relieved until the protective tariff of 1842 was passed, and
that thenceforward, for the four years in which that Act was allowed
to remain in force, the country enjoyed general prosperity,--a
prosperity so marked and wide-spread that the opposing party had
not dared to make an issue against the tariff in States where there
was large investment in manufacturing.

The free-traders consider the tariff of 1846 to be a conclusive
proof the beneficial effect of low duties. They challenge a
comparison of the years of its operation, between 1846 and 1857,
with any other equal period in the history of the country.
Manufacturing, they say, was not forced by a hot-house process to
produce high-priced goods for popular consumption, but was gradually
encouraged and developed on a healthful and self-sustaining basis,
not to be shaken as a reed in the wind by every change in the
financial world. Commerce, as they point out, made great advances,
and our carrying trade grew so rapidly that in ten years from the
day the tariff of 1846 was passed our tonnage exceeded the tonnage
of England. The free-traders refer with especial emphasis to what
the term the symmetrical development of all the great interests of
the country under this liberal tariff. Manufactures were not
stimulated at the expense of the commercial interest. Both were
developed in harmony, while a