Congress became a public question. Many other considerations were
complicated with it. It was necessary for the United States to obtain
a revenue, and this could most easily be done by a tariff of duties on
imports. It was necessary for the Federalist majority to consider the
party interests both in the agricultural States, which would object
to protective duties, and in the States which demanded them. But the
highest consideration in the mind of Hamilton and the most influential
leaders of the party seems to have been the maintenance of the
Union. The repulsive force of the States toward one another was still
sufficiently strong to be an element of constant and recognized danger
to the Union. One method of overcoming it, as a part of the whole
Hamiltonian policy, was to foster the growth of manufactures as an
interest entirely independent of State lines and dependent on the
national government, which would throw its whole influence for the
maintenance of the Union. This feeling runs through the speeches even of
Madison, who prefaced his remarks by a declaration in favor of "a trade
as free as the policy of nations would allow." Protection, therefore,
began in the United States as an instrument of national unity, without
regard to national profit; and the argument in its favor would have been
quite as strong as ever to the mind of a legislator who accepted every
deduction as to the economic disadvantages of protection. Arguments for
its economic advantages are not wanting; but they have no such form and
consistency as those of subsequent periods. The result of the discussion
was the tariff act of July 4, 1789, whose preamble stated one of its
objects to be "the encouragement and protection of manufactures." Its
average duty, however, was but about 8.5 per cent. It was followed by
other acts, each increasing the rate of general duties, until, at the
outbreak of the War of 1812, the general rate was about 21 per cent. The
war added about 6 per cent, to this rate.

Growth toward democracy very commonly brings a curious bias toward
protection, contrasted with the fundamental free-trade argument that a
protective system and a system of slave labor have identical bases. The
bias toward a pronounced protective system in the United States makes
its appearance with the rise of democracy; and, after the War of 1812,
is complicated with party interests. New England was still the citadel
of Federalism. The war and its blockade had