The Arkansas banner., 1843-11-18
p oLtTIC A L..
MIR. CLAY AND HIS NEW OPINIONS.

MIR CLAY AND HIS NEW OPINIONS.
 Who is the father of the American sytem who the great champion of protection who the friend of high tariffs , who is for laying duties which will exclude foreign importa- tions, and leave the field free to the patriotic American manufacturer? Ask the friends of the protective system in any part of the coun- try, and the answer will be, Henry Clay.
 Yet, read the letter which we publish in our paper of to day, written only four weeks since to Dr. Bronson, of Georgia, and you will find all this to be mistake. You learn, that Mir. Clay is a sort of free trade man. The change which public opinion has undergone so extensively in our country, particularly in the western region, has made it proper that this actor fall work should appear in new character. Mir. Clay, therefore, IS not the friend of a high tariff; he never was! He did not vote for The tariff of 1898; he thought 1t and thinks it disgraceful measure. When he came in Congress in 1881, he struggled, as he tells his friend, the Georgian, to procure reduction of the exorbitant duties imposed by that unjust measure. His benevolent ef- forts were in some degree successful, inas- much as the tariff of 1832 was passed, which greatly reduced the duties, and mitigated the injustice done to commerce. Finally, the exer,ions of this great champion of the free dom of commerce were crowned, in lsA3, by the passage of the Compromise Act, which completed the relief of American trade.
 Thus far, our readers will perceive, MT. Clay makes himself the friend of low duties, champion of the shipping interest, with standing the selfish designs of the manufac turers, those knaves who procured the tariff of 1928. We now get to the tariff of 1851, which re-imposed the duties taken of by the Compromise Act of 1S33, the very act for which Mir. Clay takes to himself so much credit. What says MT. Clay to this
 The old politician seems somewhat embar rassed by this change of wind: However, he trims himself to it as well as he can. He was not in Congress- he says when 1t was passed, so that nobody can throw ill his teeth that he voted for it. As the time approached when he must face the question, when he must either support or oppose the bill, he took the prudent course of retiring--he skulked, as the sailors say. He will not, he observes, express an opinion upon every item of this tariff. He would say, how ever, that the main provisions of this act, which undoes what was done by the Com promise Act, are wise and proper. Both were wise and proper-the Compromise Act which took off the exorbitant duties. and the tariff of lS42, which put them on again-Mr. Clay thinks very well of both. Hehnts sus- picion, however, that there may be excesses and defects in this new tariff, though, unfor- tunately, being at Ashland, he has not the means of judging-and if such there be, he declares they ought to be corrected. He IS clear on that point-what is wrong in the new tariff should be set right.
 Mir. Clay closes with telling his Georgia correspondent that he secs no danger of high tariff hereafter. Our manufactures, he says, have taken deep root, and therefore, he encouragement, and by and by wifi need still less. Of course we may then begin perhaps begin even now-to reduce the du- ties imposed by the tariff of 1853, and, if need be, pass another Compromise Act.
 Mir. Clay's views in regard to the tariff question, are expressed in the following stere- otyped ambiguities:
 tsThe sum and substance of what con- ceive to be the true policy of the United States, in respect to tariff, may be briefly stated. In conformity with the principle an- nounced in the Compromise Act, l think, that whatever revenue IS necessary to all eco- nomical and honest administration of the General Government, ought to be derived from duties imposed on foreign imports. And l believe that, in establishing tariff of those duties, such a discrimination ought to be made, as will incidentally afford reasonable protection to our national interests"
 Thus we see Mir. Clay is for low duties, revenue tariff; and as to discrimination ill the laying of duties, he would make such as would incidentally afford reasonable protec- tion, to what ito manufactures i-Mr. Clay is-too cautious to say that-but to " our na- tional interess,o an elastic phrase, which may be twisted into any meaning.
 For our part, it is not without pain that we see politician who stands at the head of one of the great parties in the Union, and to whom so many, with a childish and mis- placed veneration, we admit, look as model of public conduct playing part like this, for the manifest purpose of securing few votes at the South, and among the enemies of the protective system, belying his whole political course, shrinking with an unmanly dread of unpopularity, from the avowal of opinions he has all along maintained, and la boring to place his public acts in point of view, which all who are in the least acquainted with them, know to be false. W. Y. Fec Post.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF A VOTE.
 Notwithstanding the largc- democratic ma jority in each branch of the Pennsylvania le-