Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/232

220 Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire opposed the tariff because it would be injurious to commerce. But they soon accommodated themselves to it. It was a combination of the grain-growing with the manufacturing interest, the idea of the “home market,” that carried the day.

Clay achieved a great triumph for himself. He had not only far outshone all others by his championship of the successful measure, but he had given to the protective policy a new name, the “American system,” which became inseparably identified with his own. This appellation was indeed not without its ludicrous side, which Webster did not fail promptly to perceive and to exhibit with keen sarcasm. “If names are thought necessary,” said he, “it would be well enough, one would think, that the name should be in some measure descriptive of the thing: and since Mr. Speaker denominates the policy which he recommends, ‘a new policy in this country;’ since he speaks of the present measure as a new era in our legislation; since he professes to invite us to depart from our accustomed course, to instruct ourselves by the wisdom of others, and to adopt the policy of the most distinguished foreign states, — one is a little curious to know with what propriety of speech this imitation of other nations is denominated an ‘American policy,’ while, on the contrary, a preference for our own established system, as it now actually exists and always has existed, is called a ‘foreign policy.’ This favorite American policy