aine was supposed to neutralize
whatever political advantages, which would accrue to the South from the
admission of Missouri as a slave State. Both sections were content, and
the slavery question was thought to be permanently settled. With this
final disposition of an ugly problem, the peace and permanence of the
Union were viewed universally as fixed facts. Still, considering the
gravity of the case, a little precaution would not go amiss. The slavery
question had shaken men's faith in the durability of the republic. It
was therefore adjudged a highly dangerous subject. The political
physicians with one accord prescribed on the ounce-of-prevention
principle, _quiet_, SILENCE, and OBLIVION, to be administered in large
and increasing doses to both sections. Mum was the word, and mum the
country solemnly and suddenly became from Maine to Georgia. But, alas!
beneath the ashes of this Missouri business, deep below the unnatural
silence and quiet, inextinguishable fires were burning and working again
to the surface of politics. In such circumstances a fresh outbreak of
old animosities must occur as soon as the subterranean heat should reach
the point of highest combustibility in the federal system. The tariff
proved to be that point of highest combustibility.

Alexander Hamilton inaugurated the policy of giving governmental aid to
infant manufactures. The wisdom of diversifying the industries of the
young nation was acquiesced in by the leading statesmen of both
sections. Beset as the republic then was by international forces hostile
to democratic institutions, it was natural enough that the great men who
presided over its early years should seek by Federal legislation to
render it, as speedily and completely as possible, industrially
self-dependent and self-supporting. The war of 1812 enforced anew upon
the attention of statesmen the importance of industrial independence.
The war debt, together with certain governmental enterprises and
expenditures growing out of the war, was largely, if not wholly,
responsible for the tariff of 1816. This act dates the rise of our
American system of protection. It is curious to note that Southern men
were the leaders of this new departure in the national fiscal policy.
Calhoun, Clay, and Lowndes were the guiding spirits of that period of
industrial ferment and activity. They little dreamt what economic evils
were to fall in consequence upon the South. That section was not slow to
feel the