Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1894-03-30
HISTORY OF THE TARIFF.
4 Brief Review Of Legislation on TIN
Subject In Thia Country.

/ u
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-
tectlve 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 a significant fact
that of the 80 votes given for the bill 81
were from the Southern, 10 from the Mid
die and from the New England states.
It's 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-Washingt Madison
and Monroe. Of the 10 votes against the
law were from New England, from the
Southern and from the Middle states. It
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 SITS.
John G. Calhoun began his career as q
protectionist, and favored the diffusion
and growth Of manufactures throughout
all sections alike. He remained a stanch
protectlonlst for many years, until he and
his followers of the South began to realize
that the interests of slave buyers and own
ers, and of free, protected and well paid
labor were inevitably antagonistic. That
reason, whatever influence it NAV have
had then, ought to have no force now, for
slavery and the slave trade no longer have
| 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"
Workings Of the Revenue Tariff of 1916.
In 1916 the first revenue or free trade
tariff was enacted. Henry Clay in 1928,
seven years after the adoption of this tar
| iff, thus described the condition of the
country: s'The general distress which
pervades the whole country is forced upon
us by numerous facts Of the most lincoln
testible character. It is indicated by the
diminished 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
the circulating medium; by the UNIVERSE
complaint Of the want of employment and
the consequent reduction of the wages of
labor, and above all, by the low and de-
| pressed state of the value Of almost every
description of property in the nation.
which has, on an average, sunk not less
than 5Oper cent within few years. 1t is
| most painful for me to dwell on the gloom
of this picture, but I have exaggerated
nothing. Perfect fidelity to the original
deeper and darker hues."
! Colonel Thomas II. Benton's description
of the same period is well worthy to be
noted:
"No price for property or produce; no
| SQ1po Init fh0co 0f no ohoriff md Tho
E! shall; no purchasers at execution sales but
; the creditor or some hoarder of money; no
employment for industry; no demand for
labor; no sale for the products of the farm;
no sound of the hammer but that of the
-auctioneer knocking down pr operty. Stop
laws, property laws, replevin laws, stay
laws, loan Office lawsuits was the bust
ness of the legislatures in three-fourths of
the states of the Union. Distress the
universal cry of the people; relief the uni
versal demand Numbered at the doors of
all legislatures, state and federal"
| Protective Act of 1894.
No relief came until the protective act of
1924. Among those who voted for that
much needed measure were such we'll
known Democrats as Andrew jackson,
| senator from Tennessee; Thomas II. Ben
ton, senator from Missouri; Martin Van
Buren,, senator from New York; James
| Buchanan. representative from Penn
sylvania; Richard M. johnson, senator
from Kentucky; Louis Nc Lain, a represen-
tative from Maryland; General Sam Hous-
ton, a representative from Tennessee and
! afterward senator from Texas. It will be
observed that in this group are three Dem
ocratic statesmen who subsequently be-
came president of the United States, as
we'll as one that became vice president,
Richard M. johnson of Kentucky All
gave their ardent support to this protective
tariff measure and there was as yet no
sectionalism manifest in ou,. Industrial
legislation. ., & ss a@@.i,<st
In 1928 the tariff was still further in
creased. Again most of these same dis
tlnguished Democrats, including Silas
Wright of New York, one of the ablest
leaders of that party in the country, voted
for it. The names of no fewer than five
gentlemen who subsequently became
president are recorded in the yeas and
nays on the passage of this bill. Martin
T Van Buren,, William Henry Harrison and
James Buchanan voted for it, and John
Tyler and James K. Polk against it.
| Compromise of 1893
| But the change Of position of Mr.. Cal
houn and his followers eventually found
expression In the compromise tariff Of 1888
This continued in force for about 10 years,
and while it claimed the excitement in the
South occasioned by the notification cpl
sode OF 1882, it at length produced the
great financial crisis of 1897, period Of
distress almost equal to that which pre-.
ceded the enactment of the tariff of 1894.
II a nj al