The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-08-01
The Tariff.
HISTORY OF TARIFF.

Inc origin OF tar1n laws IS traced back to the
twilight of fable 1t is said that Hiram and Sol
ONION laid duties upon foreign merchandise for
the benefit Of their people Carthage was con
spicuous, in her palmiest days, for her tariff
laws. The Philistines compelled the Jews to
put out the fires of their FORCES SO that they
might not become too independent, just as, 5000
years later, England compelled the American
colonists to desist from manufacturing. Athens
was distinctiVely protective city. The
Caesars restored the protective policy to
Rome which had fallen into decay
in the corrupt days preceding their
rule. Gibbon says that the rate of customs I'M
der Augustus varied from oneelghth to one
fortieth of the value of the article This charge
was laid especially upon the goods of Arabia and
India. The struggles Of the eighteenth century
were for the markets of the world. France and
and then for India. England met Hol-
land and Spain upon the high seas,
and the prizes won in the naval bat
ties changed the worlds trade. After the strug-
gle began for the mastery by the British mer-
chants England adopted thoroughly
protective policy, and maintained it, until
She became dictator in the commercial world,
laying tribute upon all articles which was de-
sirable for the protection Of her internal manu-
facture and commerce, until such time as she
could compete with foreign trade by home indus
try. For this purpose she transplanted the busy
artisans from Switzerland, France and Germany,
and planted them in her own midst. In 1879
there came a bold discussion Of proposed policy
that all sorts of merchandise be imported and
exported without paying customs or fees, but
until 1876 the customs were retained, and Eng
land protected her industries Then she de-
pressed her wage classes to the lowest living
wages and has since kept them as abiect meni-
ais in her workshops, without hope of rising,
only to exc out miserable existence until death
relieves them. This was the price of free trade
to Englands laborers To ireland she pursueda
worse policy. After absorbing ireland by aper-
nicious system of land laws, and planting her
own emissaries there, she wickedly tore down
the manufacturing establishments of Dublin and
Cork and tranEplanted the skilled artisans to
Manchester and Birmingham. The Irish tenant
became little better than slave to the English
landlord, and the manufacturing establishments
were destroyed and the operatives compelled to
leave Ireland to become the menials of Eng
lands manufacturers Ireland's population,
under this pernicious system, has been reduced
from 5000 900 to 8, 600 000 starvation and misery
fastened upon the people, until the murmurs Of
that unhappy land have filled the globe.
The history of the tariff in this country begins
with the adoption of the present Constitution.
The first tariff act was passed by the fathers in
1870 The constitutional questions as to the
power of the government to lay imposts upon
foreign commerce, for the double purpose of
raising revenue and protecting home industries,
was in the first instance thoroughly discussed.
Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and
Hamilton, were among the men who advocated
the doctrine of tariff for protection. Tariff laws
from that time forward were constantly enacted,
modified, amended or repealed, until the year
1885, when the Robert J. Walker tariff act or
free trade law, more properly speaking, was en-
acted and became the policy of the government
until the year 1861
Stopping at this point for the purpose Of ex-
amining the diversity of views expressed on this
question: and the origin of those views, cite, as
an example of the growth of the doctrine of free
trade in this country, the contention of slave
holding statesmen and their eonfreres on the
subject assert as fact that when the pres
emit Constitution of the United States was
| formed the artisans and wage classes In the
cities of New York. Baltimore, Philadelphia,
Boston and Charleston, paraded the streets bear
ing transparencies, very like those which are
| borne to-day by similar classes These trans
parencieS announced that henceforth this gov
ernment would protect its home industries
! against the encroachment of foreign articles.
These notices found utterance and amplitude
in the discussions which soon thereafter followed
! by the fathers and trainers of the Constitution.
/ But it was not until more than a quarter of a
century had passed that the slave-owners in this
country found that protection to the manufac-
| turing interest and wage class of the people,
was inimical and hostile to the institution
| of slavery. 1t was then that their statesmen,
/ with some noble exceptions, espoused the cause
! of free trade and labored arduously to in
! dOctrinate the country with that theory. And
the present doctrinares of free trade are the dis
ciples of that school that found it necessary to
advocate free trade that slavery might not per-
ish from the Republic. In various forms and
shapes this question was discussed from time to
time, down to the year 1860, when the Southern
wing of that class of statesmen seeded. or at
tempted to secede from the Union. The first
thing they did after this attempt of secession
was to place in the organic law of the socalled
Confederate States their theory on this subject
They had become so thoroughly indoctrinated
with this false notion, that they put into the
Constitution of the so-called Confederate States
this clause:
Section 8. Congress shall have power to lay and
collect tax duties mposts and excise for revenue
essary to pay the debts provide for common defense
and carry on the government =, but no bounty
shall be granted from the treasury, nor shall any
debt or tax importation from foreign nations be
laid to promote or foster any branch Of industry
So good Democrat as the Hon w. w Ea-
ton, of Connecticut, found it necessary, in the
course of his remarks on the recent Morrison
tariff bill in the House of Representatives, to
notify these gentlemen from the South who
were clamoring for free trade, that they were
not acting under the clause Of the Constitution
| of the socalled Confederate States which had
| gone down in bloody struggle, but were acting
under the Constitution of the fathers of the Re
| public, who had given an INTERPRETATION to the
general welfare clause in harmony with the pro
| tectiye system. Is it not strange that a
Connecticut Democrat should find it
necessary to warn the great bulk Of
his party against the pernicious
doctrines which they had so recently fought to
maintainl Is it not surprising that he felt it
incumbent on him to warn this section of the
Democratic party that they must cease their
warfare upon the industries Of this country, and
administer to them fitting and proper rebuke
for their attack upon tine doctrine of the fathers,
that had brought to his State such prosperity
and happiness2
/ Mr. Eaton was not single in his party in ad-
ministering a rebuke to the free-trade wing of
thelD Hon Samuel J. Randall, Hon.
John Finerty, and other eminent Demo
| if they persisted to advocate that fatal
policy, destruction would not only overtake
them, but the country would be plunged into utter
ruin The Hon. John V. Findlay, Of Maryland,
a Democratic member, probed the ulcer to the
| core, in the use Of this language, in discussing
/ the Morrison bil
/ THE United States Government was formed in part
for the creation extension and protection of manu-
facturers. The Confederate States government was