fostered manufactures in New
England; and the manufacturing interest, looking to the Democratic
party for protection, was a possible force to sap the foundations of the
citadel. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury, prepared,
and Calhoun carried through Congress, the tariff of 1816. It introduced
several protective features, the "minimum" feature, by which the
imported article was assumed to have cost at least a certain amount in
calculating duties, and positive protection for cottons and woollens.
The duties paid under this tariff were about 30 per cent. on all
imports, or 33 per cent. on dutiable goods. In 1824 and 1828, under the
lead of Clay, tariffs were adopted which made the tariff of duties still
higher and more systematically protective; they touched high-water
mark in 1830, being 40 per cent. on all imports, or 48.8 per cent. on
dutiable goods. The influence of nullification in forcing through the
compromise tariff of 1833, with its regular decrease of duties for ten
years, has been stated in the first volume.

Under the workings of the compromise tariff there was a steady decrease
in the rate on all imports, but not in the rate on dutiable goods, the
comparison being 22 per cent. on total to 32 per cent. on dutiable for
1833, and 16 per cent. on total to 32 per cent. on dutiable for 1841.
The conjunction of the increase in non-dutiable imports and the approach
of free trade, with general financial distress, gave the Whigs
success in the elections of 1840; and in 1841 they set about reviving
protection. Unluckily for them, their chosen President, Harrison, was
dead, and his successor, Tyler, a Democrat by nature, taken up for
political reasons by the Whigs, was deaf to Whig eloquence on the
subject of the tariff. After an unsuccessful effort to secure a
high tariff and a distribution of the surplus among the States, the
semi-protective tariff of 1842 became law. Its result for the next four
years was that the rate on dutiable goods was altered very little, while
the rate on total imports rose from 16 per cent. to 26 per cent. The
return of the Democrats to power was marked by the passage of the
revenue tariff of 1846, which lasted, with a slight further reduction
of duties in 1857, until 1861. Under its operation the rates steadily
decreased until, in 1861, they were 18.14 per cent, on dutiable goods,
and 11.79 per cent. on total imports.

The platform of the Republican party in the election of