commercial interests of the country,
beyond the point of mere revenue, was more manifest in fixing the rate
of duty upon tonnage than in duties upon importations. It was generally
agreed, after much debate, that American commerce had better be in
American hands, and a difference of twenty cents a ton was made between
the tax upon domestic and that upon foreign ships, as a measure of
protection to American shipping. Mr. Madison proposed to make it still
larger, but the House would only agree to increase it to forty cents on
ships belonging to powers with which the United States had no treaties.
The Senate, however, refused to admit this distinction, and insisted
that all foreign ships should be subject to the same tonnage duty
without regard to existing treaties. The House assented, lest the bill
should be lost altogether. This proposed differential duty on foreign
vessels was as clearly aimed at Great Britain as if that power had been
named in the bill. Nor, indeed, was there any attempt at concealment;
for it was openly avowed that America had no formidable rival except the
English, who already largely controlled the commerce of the United
States. In the debates and in the final decision of the question is
shown clearly enough the difference of opinion and of feeling, which
soon made the dividing line between the two great parties of the first
quarter of a century under the Constitution. Nobody then foresaw how
bitter that difference of party was to be, nor what disastrous
consequences would follow it.

Mr. Madison was among the most zealous of those who insisted upon a
discrimination against Great Britain. He thought it should be made for
the dignity no less than for the interest of the United States. He had
no fear, he said, "of entering into a commercial warfare with that
nation." England, he believed, could do this country no harm by any
peaceful reprisals she could devise. She supplied the United States with
no article either of necessity or of luxury that the people of the
United States could not manufacture for themselves. He called those
"Anglicists" who did not agree with him, and who believed that it was in
the power of Great Britain to hinder or to help immensely the prosperity
of the United States. It was not of so much moment what America bought
of England as it was that England should consent to free trade with her
colonies; and on every account it was wiser to conciliate than to defy
Great Britain; wise