f home-grown and home-made supplies for the United
States navy, but only to the point of making the nation independent of
foreign supply. In 1816 he advocated the Dallas tariff, in which the
duties ranged up to 35% on articles of home production, the supply of
which could satisfy the home demand; the avowed purpose being to build
up certain industries for safety in time of war. In 1824 he advocated
high duties to relieve the prevailing distress, which he pictured in a
brilliant and effective speech. Although the distress was caused by the
reactionary effect of a disordered currency and the inflated prices of
the war of 1812, he ascribed it to the country's dependence on foreign
supply and foreign markets. Great Britain, he said, was a shining
example of the wisdom of a high tariff. No nation ever flourished
without one. He closed his principal speech on the subject in the House
of Representatives with a glowing appeal in behalf of what he called
"The American System." In spite of the opposition of Webster and other
prominent statesmen, Clay succeeded in enacting a tariff which the
people of the Southern states denounced as a "tariff of abominations."
As it overswelled the revenue, in 1832 he vigorously favoured reducing
the tariff rates on all articles not competing with American products.
His speech in behalf of the measure was for years a protection
text-book; but the measure itself reduced the revenue so little and
provoked such serious threats of nullification and secession in South
Carolina, that, to prevent bloodshed and to forestall a free trade
measure from the next Congress, Clay brought forward in 1833 a
compromise gradually reducing the tariff rates to an average of 20%. To
the Protectionists this was "like a crash of thunder in winter"; but it
was received with such favour by the country generally, that its author
was hailed as "The Great Pacificator," as he had been thirteen years
before at the time of the Missouri Compromise (see below). As, however,
the discontent with the tariff in the South was only a symptom of the
real trouble there--the sensitiveness of the slave-power,--Clay
subsequently confessed his serious doubts of the policy of his
interference.

He was only twenty-two, when, as an opponent of slavery, he vainly urged
an emancipation clause for the new constitution of Kentucky, and he
never ceased regretting that its failure put his state, in improvements
and progress, behind its free neighbour