.

During the operation of this Act,--which was really an abandonment
of the protective principle,--the financial crisis of 1837 came
upon the country, and a period of distress ensued, almost equal to
that which preceded the enactment of the tariff of 1824. Many
persons, still in active business, recall with something of horror
the hardships and privations which were endured throughout the
country from 1837 to 1842. The long-continued depression produced
the revolution against the Democratic party which ended in the
overthrow of Mr. Van Buren and the election of General Harrison as
President of the United States in 1840. The Whig Congress that
came into power at the same time, proceeded to enact the law
popularly known as the tariff of 1842, which was strongly protective
in its character though not so extreme as the Act of 1828. The
vote in favor of the bill was not exclusively Whig, as some of the
Northern Democrats voted for it and some of the Southern Whigs
against it. Conspicuous among the former were Mr. Buchanan of
Pennsylvania and Mr. Wright of New York, who maintained a consistency
with their vote for the tariff of 1828. Conspicuous among Southern
Whigs against it were Berrien of Georgia, Clayton of Delaware,
Mangum of North Carolina, Merrick of Maryland, and Rives of Virginia.
The two men who above all others deserve honor for successful
management of the bill were George Evans, the brilliant and
accomplished senator from Maine, and Thomas M. T. McKennan, for
many years an able, upright, and popular representative from
Pennsylvania. John Quincy Adams, in a public speech delivered in
1843 in the town of Mr. McKennan's residence, ascribed to that
gentleman the chief credit of carrying the Protective Tariff Bill
through the House of Representatives. The vote showed, as all
tariff bills before had, and as all since have shown, that the
local interest of the constituency determines in large measure the
vote of the representative; that planting sections grow more and
more towards free-trade and manufacturing sections more and more
towards protection.

The friends of home industry have always referred with satisfaction
to the effect of the tariff of 1842 as an explicit and undeniable
proof of the value of protection. It raised the country from a
slough of despond to happiness, cheerfulness, confidence. It
imparted to all sections a degree of prosperity which they had not
known since the repeal of the tar