f the gold-mines suddenly decreased,
the country was thrown into distress, followed by a panic and by
long years of depression. The protectionists maintain that from
1846 to 1857 the United States would have enjoyed prosperity under
any form of tariff, but that the moment the exceptional conditions
in Europe and in America came to an end, the country was plunged
headlong into a disaster from which the conservative force of a
protective tariff would in large part have saved it. The protectionists
claim moreover that in these averments they are not wise after the
fact. They show a constant series of arguments and warnings from
leading teachers of their economic school, especially from Horace
Greeley and Henry C. Carey, accurately foretelling the disastrous
results which occurred at the height of what was assumed to be our
solid and enduring prosperity as a nation. These able writers were
prophets of adversity, and the inheritors of their faith claim that
their predictions were startlingly verified.

The free-traders, as an answer to this arraignment of their tariff
policy, seek to charge responsibility for the financial disasters
to the hasty and inconsiderate changes made in the tariff in 1857,
for which both parties were in large degree if not indeed equally
answerable. The protectionists will not admit the plea, and insist
that the cause was totally inadequate to the effect, considering
the few months the new tariff had been in operation. They admit
that the low scale of duties in the new tariff perhaps may have
added to the distress, by the very rapid increase of importations
which it invited; but they declare that its period of operation
was entirely too brief to create a result so decided, if all the
elements of disaster had not been in existence, and in rapid
development, at the time the Act was passed. The tariff of 1846
therefore under which there had been a very high degree of prosperity,
was, in the judgment of the protectionists, successfully impeached,
and a profound impression in consequence made on the public mind
in favor of higher duties.

PROTECTION IN PENNSYLVANIA.

The question of the tariff was of especial significance and influence
in Pennsylvania. Important in that State, it became important
everywhere. Pennsylvania had been continuously and tenaciously
held by the Democratic party. In the old political divisions she
had followed Jefferso