Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-19
The Protective TrIumpb.

An extra session of Congress is necessary
at once to undo the great protective work of
the session just over. That was a great tri-
umph yet it is so soon done for. We think
we earnestly argued as much, while the Tariff
Bill was pending. Now we have a protect
i've tariff, but all the imports will be through
the Confederate States, paying there a
revenue duty, and supporting that Govern
ment.
If things go along in this shilly -shally way
alittle longer, the tide of foreign N
will become strongly set to the Southern
ports, and the North will have neither com.
merce, revenue, nor protection. To attempt
to collect the revenue at sea, outside the
Southern ports, is war. At present, the
Administration has no authority to do it;
and it seems disposed to bestow its richest
favors on the Republican members who voted
against giving it this authority forinstance,
Corwin.
An extra session of Congress is requisite
TO give the Government this power; but the
new Congress will, to a great extent, be made
up of the same material as the last, which
has just refused to give this power to the
Administration When it does give it,
preparations for war had better 90 with it.
1t is about time that the Administration
and the people began to recognize the situa.
ton of things. There is no peaceable solu-
ton of this question, except byR peaceable
separation unless the North keeps up its
idiotie cry for peace while the C~oufederates
make war, and remains passive and hum
bic while its revenues and are
transferred to the Confederate ports and its
commercial supremacy destroyed.
Peace means either a complete separation,
or our conquest by the Confederates. And
this they can do, as they are doing, without
striking a blow. If it is to be separation
the ooner it is completed and separate in
dependence acknowledged, the better. iii
is to be an attempt to preserve the Govern
ment of all the States, the sooner we pre-
pare for wa the less disaster we shall have
to retrieve in its progress.
Even if the difficulty is to be continued in
its present condition, it is necessary that
Congress should act at once on the tariff.
AAS SAAy bhihB shhb ~ WSSb II CdSC 10 W
reduce our tariff at once below that of the
Confederates, even if we nave to repeal all
duties. Our commercial supremacy must be
preserved, and nothing short of this will do
it. The States should at once be called on
for their quota of the means to support the
Government.
Many people really believe that our man.
ufactures would be ruined by this. The
manufacturers know better. Unnatural re-
strictions never helped manufactures in this
country, nor any other, and never will. On
the contrary, protective duties keep manu-
features always in that state of 'infancy''
which is accepted as their constitutional
condition in America. With protective re-
strictions, manufactures are always restrict
ed and dwarfed. Labor is abundant in this
country; and there is nothing to prevent
our industry from competing with that of
the whole world except the unnatural infia-
ton of nominal values by our fictitious cur
rency.
We firmly believe, in fact we know, as
well as we know that there is a God-that
the repeal of all duties would, after a tenn
porary crisis not more severe than regularly
comes now once in about three years, result
greatly to the prosperity of our manufactures.
We presume that there has never been a
tariff that did not cripple manufactures more
by its tax upon their materials, than it
helped them, even apparently, by its other
protection.