Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/74

50 nature, also mentioned by Mr. Blaine. “So general,” says he, “was this acquiescence that in 1856 a protective tariff was not suggested or even hinted at by any one of the three parties which presented Presidential Candidates.” It was not surprising, therefore, that, with a plethoric condition of the National Treasury for two or three consecutive years, the Democratic Congress enacted what has since become known as the tariff of 1857. By this law the duties were placed lower than they had been at any time since the War of 1812.

It is said that the extraordinary prosperity of that period was owing in great part to a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, with which the low tariff had nothing to do; and this is undoubtedly true. But it is equally true that the remarkably prosperous development of our manufactures, with which the tariff is supposed to have had something to do, did take place under the low tariff of 1846, and thus disproved all the dismal predictions to the contrary. An unprecedented thing happened. It had long been a current saying among politicians that, as often as a presidential election came around, the manufacturers were on hand demanding of political parties some “legislative favors” in consideration of their votes. Ten years after the tariff of 1846 had gone into operation, the manufacturers asked for nothing; or, if any of them did, they were so few that no party did them reverence.

But, if the general state of satisfaction under the low tariff of 1846 was so great as Mr. Blaine justly describes it, why did the country ever return to a different system? The revenue became so redundant that in 1857 Congress thought it wise to reduce tariff duties still further. The Senators and Representatives of the principal manufacturing States of New England voted for the reduction. The financial crisis of 1857, brought on mainly by our currency disorders, bad banking and excessive speculation,