New-York daily tribune., 1866-01-11
A HISTORICAL MISTAKE.


The Uorli, assailing the present Tariff and
the policy of Protection, says:
Duties cannot he lawfully levied merely to protect
mammoth associations Of capital in New-England.
powcr and the incident cannot legally be carried above
lie principal. 1nR TRIBUNE school Of politicians. who
make the interest Of manufacturers thing OF para.
mount importance. rarely discuss what rate oi Guty
will on n giyen article, yield the mott money 10 the
T,easr hut what will be best for special pirate
corporations"
We beg leave 10 correct our neighbor on n
vital point. "THg TRIBUNE school Of politi-
clans" does not "make the interest OF manufae.
tmers a thing of paramount importance;' nor
does it seek merely to protect mammoth asso-
cations of capital in Nen.Engiand." On the
contrary, we learned our political economy from
the essays and letters of Matthew Carey, Heze-
kah Niles, James Madison, and Andrew Jack
son, as also from the speeches of Henry Clay
of Kentucky, Tod, Sergeant and Forward oi
PENNSYLVANIA, Newton and Doddridge Of Vir'
ginia, Southland of New-Jerscy, Henry X. Storrs
and James Talimadge of Ncw-lork, DC, &c.
To single New Highlander only-kollin c.
Mallory of vermont-are we consciously in
debted for any confirmation of those views.
/ We learned to love and cherish the policy OF
Protection, while New-England was strongly
adverse to it-whie Daniel Webster was speak
ing and voting against it-and while but
single Boston journal The Courier-was ITS
advocate. Others have changed-.or the better
or worse, as IT may be-but our views ofPoliti-
| Il L,,.. bcn AZ IA.
ened, not essentially modified, by the discus
sions and developments Of the last thirty TO
forty years.
| All this, maniiestly, does not prove them
correct bat il does expose the mean unyeraclty
and shallow knavery Of such language as we
quote above from Tie World, and to which
economists Of its school are notoriously prone.
Why can't some one Of them be shamed into the
manly seeming Of taking up Gen. Jacksons
letter to DR.. Coleman (for instance) and attenpt-
ing to show wherein he was mistaken in arguing
that the interests Of Agriculture were to be
best subservcd BY Protective duties on imported
Manufactures His statement of the ease il
clear, direct and postive-it covers the whole
ground-lct us see The World for once quote II
and trv TO prove it fallacious. Such course
might convince some one OF the sincerity if not
the soundness Of our neighbours nculcations
while the supercilious nippancy of its current
substitute for argument can only harden concert
into bigotry and preclude investigation by
diGusng the impression that the question has
but one side.
The great aSd wise men who laid the
foundations of the Protective policy among u:
could not have been swervcd from the true line
by devotion to "the interest of manufacturers
or of Especial private corporations;" since
these had in their day no substantive existcncC
among Us. We were Nation Of cultivntors
exporting rude and bulky products wherewitl
to pay for most Of the Metals and Fabrics vi
, required. OF course, we were poor, as purely
=. Agricultural nations always are. Sometime
VIC found eager markets and good prices for on
, surplus products; at other times, We coult
scarcely give them away; while in the bes
, times very large share Of their price wa
. absorbed by the cost of transit from producer
10 OuI lhtiI'IS suIu, lIlIS II
not the true policy: We must diversity oul
Industry; we must cherish and naturalizC
Manufactures: thereby securing permanent
f markets nnd higher prices for our Agriculture
, products, while increasing the intelligence
skill and efficiency of our Labor" We un
, doubtingly believe they were right in this view
and that our country is this day immensely
richer, more populous, more intelligent, mor'
prosperous, than it would or could have bee!
had the counselS Of such statesmen as Hamil
ton, Clay and Jackson been withheld or disre
garded. Othcrs-honestly, we doubt no.-hol'
|, the opposite view; but they have usually becl
estopped from fairly considering ours by suci
calumnious abuse as we have quoted from III
World. We have studied their economic
philosophy, and believe we see exactly wherein
, il is detective or mistaken. They have no
studied ours, because they began with thu
assumption that VIC had and could have none
They will never comprehend US, because the!
do not deem it worth while; but their selt-com