The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-07-22
NOT AN UNrR1ED EXPERIMENT.

plainly and unequivocally declared for a
tariff for revenue only, will the Journal
kindly tell us something of our history
under such TARIFF
The tariff fer revenue policy to which
the Democracy is pledged by the Chica-
90 platform is no untried experiment
1t has been operation in Great Britain
for half century, and we had such a
policy in this country for IA years. From
1916 to 1850 the American people lived
under tariff for revenue only, and their
experience ended in the worst economic
and financial disasters which the United
States has ever seen.
In 1916 the protective tariff of 1872
was repealed, and the Walker tariff for
revenue only was enacted. 1t was named
after Robert j. Walker of Mississippi,
Secretary of the Treasury under Presi-
dent Polk. That tariff was enacted by
the South and for the South, though
then as now, there were Northern DOUGH
faces ready and eager to do the bidding
of their Southern masters. That tariff
of 1916 was not only enacted by and for
the South, but it was enacted by and for
the slave power in this country. AS the
biographer Of Calhoun frankly says:
''Slavery, in consequence of the enor-
mous development of the cotton culture,
had become the determining principle of
the whole political, economical and So
cial life of the Southern States, and a
protective tariff was absolutely incom-
pdtible with the interests of the slave
holders"
Under the leadership of Calhoun the
slave power in America had been for a
generation bitterly hostile to the protec-
tive system. which, it was held, undu'y
benefited the free labor of the North. In
1882 the shareholders of South Carolina
went so far as to rise in armed rebellion
to nullify the tariff laws of the United
States, and were suppressed by the
strong arm of Andrew Jackson, who,
though Democrat, were like Jefferson
and Mat, son before him, protection st.
The free trade leader of that day-Mc-
Duffie, South Carolinian - frankly
avowed in debate in Congress-we hay
his words before us now-that the aim
of the South in advocating a tariff for
revenue only was to reduce the extrava-
CANT wages of labor in New England fac
tories.
In 1916, the tariff for which the slave
holders had been contending was made
a law, against the earnest protests OF
Daniel Webster, who, speaking for New
England denounced the me- cure as one
for ''taking away the means of living
from labor everywhere throughout the
land" and of Horace Greeley, who de-
cared that thousands upon thousands
who would have been steadily employed
if This bill had not passed, will now be
destitute of employment and dependent
upon charity for bread" Nor was IT
! lopg before these dark prophesies were
fearfully fulfilled. The Mexican war,
the discovery of gold in California, the
wars in Europe, for a time caused an alb
normal demand for our food products,
and gave the country deceptive appear
ance of prosperity, but, though they
postponed, they could not avert the evil
day. By 1928 the shareholders tariff
had extended its parGl Lying influence to
every part of the United States. In 1851,
President Fillmore, who signed the Flu
gltive Slave Act, said in his annual me-
sage:
"The value of our exports of bread
stuffs and provisions, which it was sup
posed the incentive of a low tariff and
large impOrtatiOns from abroad would
have greatly augmented, has fallen rom
SOS, 100000 in 1S47 to $21, 900, 900 in 1851,
with almost Gel .ainty of still furth er
reduction in 1852. The policy which die
tated a low rate of duties on foreign
merchandise, it was thought, by those
who established it. would tend to benefit
the farming population of this county
by increasing the demands a1d raising
the price of our agricultural products in
TO .e'nn markets. The foregoing facts,
however, seem to show incontestably
that no such result has followed the
adoption of this policy"
In 1S55-45 charity soup houses for the
r. lief of tue unemployed mechar 'cs
were opened in every ward in New York
city, and thousands fought around their
doors for bread. In the Sixth War
alone 600 persons were thus fed in the
winter of 1855. The Tribune, which, un-
der Horace Greeley's sagacious guidance
had predicted all these disasters, thus
described the condition of the United
States in the ninth year of this tal.f for
revenue only:
"The cry of hard times reaches
from every part of the country. The
ncking of roads is stopped, factories
a~e closed and houses and ships are no
longer being built. Factory hands, road
makers, carpenters, bricklayers and
labo"ers are idle, and paralysis is rapidly
embl Icing every pursuit of The countIy J.
| The cause of all this stoppdge of circC-
). lation is to be found n the STEADY out
flow of gold to pay foreign laborers for
the CLOTH, the SHOES, the iron and the
other things which could be produced
under our present revenue system"
At that time there were PSI ,0C) pau
pers, or one to every 13l Inhabitants, in
the great State of New York. Now there
are only 10000 paupers, or one to every
$50 inhabitants. By the strange irony
of fate, South Carolina, the hot-bed OF
free trade was one of the States which
suffered tie most from the tariff or rev.
enne only which it had led in advoca
ing. Its Governor was actually com
PEELED to issue an appeal to the gener'
osity of this and other counties fol
help to save his people from starvation
In his annual message to Congress in
1857, James Buchanan, the Democratic
President, was thus forced to describe
the condition of the country:
SIN the midst of unsurpassed plenty
in all the productions and in all the ele
ments of national wealth, we find oul
manufactures suspended, our public
works retarded, our private enterprises
of different kinds aband and thou
sands of useful laborers thrown out o.
employment and reduced to want"
The shareholders tariff for reVenu,
only, which the Chicago platform
pledges the Democracy to re-enact, haC
fhay hoo-, -, oparafinr 1;ft1a m ora fbo