Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

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      This list of members presents an immense array of talent, and especially of business talent; and in its long succession of respectable names, many will be noted as having attained national reputations – others destined to attain that distinction – while many more, in the first class of useful and respectable members, remained without national renown for want of that faculty which nature seems most capriciously to have scattered among the children of men – the faculty of fluent and copious speech; – giving it to some of great judgment – denying it to others of equal, or still greater judgment – and lavishing it upon some of no judgment at all. The national eyes are fixed upon the first of these classes – the men of judgment and copious speech; and even those in the third class obtain national notoriety; while the men in the second class – the men of judgment and few words – are extremely valued and respected in the bodies to which they belong and have great weight in the conduct of business. They are, in fact, the business men, often more practical and efficient than the great orators. This twentieth Congress, as all others that have been, contained a large proportion of these most useful and respectable members; and it will be the pleasant task of this work to do them the justice which their modest merit would not do for themselves.

      CHAPTER XXXIV.

      REVISION OF THE TARIFF

      The tariff of 1828 is an era in our legislation, being the event from which the doctrine of "nullification" takes its origin, and from which a serious division dates between the North and the South. It was the work of politicians and manufacturers; and was commenced for the benefit of the woollen interest, and upon a bill chiefly designed to favor that branch of manufacturing industry. But, like all other bills of the kind, it required help from other interests to get itself along; and that help was only to be obtained by admitting other interests into the benefits of the bill. And so, what began as a special benefit, intended for the advantage of a particular interest, became general, and ended with including all manufacturing interests – or at least as many as were necessary to make up the strength necessary to carry it. The productions of different States, chiefly in the West, were favored by additional duties on their rival imports; as lead in Missouri and Illinois, and hemp of Kentucky; and thus, though opposed to the object of the bill, many members were necessitated to vote for it. Mr. Rowan, of Kentucky, well exposed the condition of others in this respect, in showing his own in some remarks which he made, and in which he said:

      Thus, this tariff bill, like every one admitting a variety of items, contains a vicious principle, by which a majority may be made up to pass a measure which they do not approve. But besides variety of agricultural and manufacturing items collected into this bill, there was another of very different import admitted into it, namely, that of party politics. A presidential election was approaching: General Jackson and Mr. Adams were the candidates – the latter in favor of the "American System" – of which Mr. Clay (his Secretary of State) was the champion, and indissolubly connected with him in the public mind in the issue of the election. This tariff was made an administration measure, and became an issue in the canvass; and to this Mr. Rowan significantly alluded when he spoke of a tariff as being "perverted by the ambition of political aspirants." It was in vain that the manufacturers were warned not to mix their interests with the doubtful game of politics. They yielded to the temptation – yielded as a class, though with individual exceptions – for the sake of the temporary benefit, without seeming to realize the danger of connecting their interests with the fortunes of a political party. This tariff of '28, besides being remarkable for giving birth to "nullification," and heart-burning between the North and the South, was also remarkable for a change of policy in the New England States, in relation to the protective system. Being strongly commercial, these States had hitherto favored free trade; and Mr. Webster was the champion of that trade up to 1824. At this session a majority of those States, and especially those which classed politically with Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, changed their policy: and Webster became a champion of the protective system. The cause of this change, as then alleged, was the fact that the protective system had become the established policy of the government, and that these States had adapted their industry to it; though it was insisted, on the other hand, that political calculation had more to do with the change than federal legislation: and, in fact, the question of this protection was one of those which lay at the foundation of parties, and was advocated by General Hamilton in one of his celebrated reports of fifty years ago. But on this point it is right that New England should speak for herself, which she did at the time of the discussion of the tariff in '28; and through the member, now a senator (Mr. Webster), who typified in his own person the change which his section of the Union had undergone. He said: