The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1894-03-30
HISTORY OF THE TARIFF.
Brief Review of Legislation on the
Subject in This Country.

Brief Review of Legislation on the
Subject in This Country.
Before considering this measure in detail
let us briefly review our tart If legislation.
1t is worth something to us all to know
what the founders of the republic thought
and did. 1t is inspiring to us to know
from history that our earliest legislation
upon economic questions was not MANNED
by sectionalism, nor framed upon geo.
graphical lines, but was prompted by the
loftiest patriotism and marked by ma
tional sentiment as broad as the country.
The first protective tariff law in our his
tory, "a law that was approved by Wash
ington had for it's author James Madison
of Virginia, known and revered as the
Father of the Constitution" Among it's
supporters and friends were such we'll
known Southern statesmen as Richard
Henry Lee, the friend and eulogist of
Washington; Charles Carroll of Carroll
ton, Abraham Baldwin and James Jack
son of Georgia, Theodore Bland and
John Brown of Virginia, Hugh William
son and John Sewer of North Caro-
lima, John Henry and Daniel Car
roll of Maryland, George Read and John
Vining of Delaware, Ralph lizard, Thomas
Tudor Tucker and Thomas Sumter of
South Carolina. These men had, for the
most part, been soldiers of the revolution,
and members of the convention which
framed the constitution. They held pro-
tective legislation to be essential to our in
dustrial independence and progress-and
knowing something of the constitution
did not hold such legislation to be an in
fraction of that instrument.
A still more strongly protective law was
enacted in 1890, and it is significant fact
that of the 80 votes given for the bill 81
were from the Southern, Is from the Mid
die and from the New England states.
Its advocates included most of the South
ern leaders already named, and James
Monroe of Virginia. The early laws which
inaugurated the policy of the government
had the approval of three presidents, all
from the South-Washingto Madison
and Monroe. Of the Is votes against the
law 9 were from New England, from the
Southern and l from the Middle states. 1t
will thus be seen that we are largely in
debted to the South for the inauguration
and establishment of our protective sys-
tenn.
Calhoun, Washington and jefferson Were
Protection ats.
John G. Calhoun began his career as a
protectionist, and favored the diffusion
and growth of manufactures throughout
all sections alike. He remained a stanch
protectionlst for many years, until he and
his followers of the South began to realize
that the interests of buyers and own
ers, and of free, protected and well paid
labor were inevitably antagonistic. That
reason, whatever influence it may have
had then OnUht tn haun E.,
slavery and the slave trade no longer have
a place in our civilization, and the inter
ests of one section of our common country
are exactly identical with the interests Of
every other.
Washington, in his message of 1895.
urged upon congress the necessity of &C
celebrating the establishment of certain USE
full manufactures by the intervention of
Legislative aid and protection" Jeffer.
son in December, 1901, in his first message.
congratulated congress upon the revenue
derived from tariff duties and suggested
that there is now reasonable ground of
confidence that we may safely dispense
with all internal taxes and rely for the
support of the government and the pay
ment of the public debt upon tariffs"
Wor kings of the Revenue Tariff of 1916.
In 1916 the first revenue or free trade
tariff was enacted. Henry Clay in 1923,
seven years after the adoption of this tar
Tiff, thus described the condition of the
1.-THE general distress which
pervades the whole country is forced upon
us by numerous facts of the most incon-
testible character. 1t is indicated by the
exports of native products; by
the depressed and reduced state of our for
eign navigation; by our diminished COM
merce; by successive unthreshed crops of
grain perishing in our barns for want of a
market; by the alarming diminution of