HE opening of the year 1832, found the parties to the Tariff
controversy once more engaged in earnest debate, on the floor of
Congress; and midsummer witnessed the passage of a new Bill, including
the principle of protection. This Act produced a crisis in the
controversy, and led to the movements in South Carolina toward
secession; and, to avert the threatened evil, the Bill was modified, in
the following year, so as to make it acceptable to the South; and, so
as, also, to settle the policy of the Government for the succeeding nine
years. A few extracts from the debates of 1832, will serve to show what
were the sentiments of the members of Congress, as to the effects of the
protective policy on the different sections of the Union, up to that
date:

Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "When the policy of '24 went into
operation, the South was supplied from the West, through a single
avenue, (the Saluda Mountain Gap,) with live stock, horses, cattle, and
hogs, to the amount of considerably upward of a million of dollars a
year. Under the pressure of the system, this trade has been regularly
diminishing. It has already fallen more than one-half. . . . . In
consequence of the dire calamities which the system has inflicted on the
South--blasting our commerce, and withering our prosperity--the West has
been very nearly deprived of her best customer. . . . . And what was
found to be the result of four years' experience at the South? Not a
hope fulfilled; not one promise performed; and our condition infinitely
worse than it had been four years before. Sir, the whole South rose up
as one man, and protested against any further experiment with this
system. . . . . Sir, I seize the opportunity to dispel forever the
delusion that the South can find any compensation, in a home market, for
the injurious operation of the protective system. . . . . What a
spectacle do you even now exhibit to the world? A large portion of your
fellow-citizens, believing themselves to be grievously oppressed by an
unwise and unconstitutional system, are clamoring at your doors for
justice: while another portion, supposing that they are enjoying rich
bounties under it, are treating their complaints with scorn and
contempt. . . . . This system may destroy the South, but it will not
permanently advance the prosperity of the North. It may depress us, but
can not elevate them. Beside, sir, if persevered in, it must annihilate
that portion of the country from w