Excerpt from Some Views on the Tariff Question

The writer of nearly all the following letters has consented to their publication in this form in deference to the solicitation of those who are interested in protecting the American market, and whose judgment in the matter he deems better than his own.

The writer formed his opinions on the tariff question while a youth at work in a cotton mill, commencing in the year 1832. At that time the whole country was profoundly excited by nullification in South Carolina, and the attention of all intelligent persons was challenged by the acts of South Carolina and the earnest debates on the tariff question by Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and many other great men on both sides of the question. The passage of the compromise measures, which provided for a gradual reduction of the tariff year after year, in connection with currency troubles caused largely by the effect of the reduction of the tariff, reduced the business of the country and the employment of laboring men to the lowest terms, so that in 1840, after the most exciting canvass I have ever seen, the Democratic party was thoroughly defeated, largely on the issue of a tariff for the protection of the home market.

Horace Greeley became the champion of protection, and for long years afterward maintained that position with the greatest ability, as the files of The New York Tribune will abundantly show. The writer has read, from 1832 to the present time, most of the important speeches and newspaper articles on both sides of the question, and he was never stronger in his conviction than he is to-day that the home market is the best market, and that it should be controlled and mainly supplied by our own people before making serious attempts to secure and control markets outside our own country and its jurisdiction.

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