The northern galaxy. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1844-1848, 1844-04-17
THE G. AL ky.
MIDDLEBURY:
Wednesday April II 1874.
MR.. CLAY-THE COMPROMISE
AND THE PRESENT TARIFF

If the present were not period teen.
ing with the blacklist falsehoods and Win.
peration which an utterly despairing fac.
tioR can most deliberately invent against
Mr.. Clay who is soon to spurn them IN.
der his feet, it would be matter of amaze.
ment that his friendship for protection to
domestic industry should be brought in
question by his least yeracious opponents
From the earliest dawn of his political lie
he has been an unfiinching advocate ola
protective tariff. As such he has ever
been sustained by his friends, and opposed
abused and vilified by his enemies. For
more than quarter of century he has
been hailed as the father of the American
System, and the most able and reliable
champion of the great industrial CLASSES
Of community against the open and dis.
guised advocates of Free Trade, who ior
twelve years past have swayed the gov.
eminent of the country.
In no one act of his life has Mr.. ClaY
exhibited more his unwavering attachment
to that system of protection which he had
contributed to establish them in his active
efforts to procure the adoption ofthe CON-
promise bill. And yet in nothing have
his enemies more grossly misrepresented
him, and have even ventured to arraign
him as having deserted the ground OfprO-
lection. But in truth in this very act he
appears as an angel of mercy to save the
manufacturing and agricultural Interests
of the country from utter prostraton, by
one fell swoop of locofocoism. No man
could feel deeper regret for the dreadful
crisis which desperate faction had
brought upon the country. 1t was big
with disunion and bloodshed on the one
hand, and destruction to national prosper
ity on the other. Mr.CIay chose between
two evils the policy Of compromise which
has so often saved the country. The his
tory Of the compromise bill shows the
truth ofthese assertions most concluslvelJ
In 1888 under the auspices ofGen. JACK.
son, the southern influence again gained
ascendancy. Mr.. Verplank as Jackson'
chairman of the committee Of ways and
means introduced 4 bill reducing the
tariff to a system of Is per cent. horr
zontal duties for the purposes Of receHut
only. That the bill would pass and BE-
come law was tho fixed belief Of every
wing member. AIR. Clay to whose In
mense resources in dangerous emergen.
cies all the friends of protection looked
for the means of rescue, trembled in yies
of the approaching danger. More than
one hundred millions of capital invested
in manufactures would have been at once
swept away, and all the great interests Of
the country forever ruined. He was an
unflinching friend to the protective policy
On this ground he had placed the founda
ton of bis fame, and on this ground he
had been represented as hostile to the re
publican party. A compromise bill
was the only resort, however reluctant0
attempt it. But it was adopted, and byh
Mr.. Clay procured lease often years for
the lives Of the farmers and manufactuf-
es of the country, condemned as thoJ
were by the Is per cent bill, concocted
and forced on the country by the jack
son Van Buren, party. The compromise
bill has however accomplished its object
Of averting great and present dangers
Until 1889, 40 and al, it was sufficiently
protective, but the lowest graduations pros
trated the country. Still Mr.. Clay belis'-
ed, had it been perseveredi in, after it had
run down to the 20 per cent adValorem'
by the saving provisions then to be brOt
into operation, of home valuation and casn
duties, it might save the country.
But it is asserted and stereOtyPcd BY lo'0
EDITORS that Mr.. Clay still adheres to the com,
,romise bill. II is as false as the thousahu
md one misrepresentation which are con-
family fabricating against him. 1t IS r"0
hr. Clay in several instances publicly dec'"''
d his belief in the efficacy of the PrlnciP''
# the compromise bill as the means oil Pf0-
Getting the great leading interests OF the e0uH
ry. But his wing friends in Congress al ia''
ecame satisfied that the principle OF nome
aluation was wholly impracticable' ana Fs-
uc,ant as Mr.. Clay was Of even the appear
nee Of violating any assurances OF Puon'