The Compromise Tariff.

In 1833 was passed the compromise tariff, by which duties were reduced gradually to 20 per cent, in 1842. This tariff was deceptive and complicated. It had no principle of economic science at its root—neither protection nor free trade. It was patched up as a concession, although it really made very little, and its provisions were so intricate and contradictory that it produced little revenue. Specific duties were unaffected by it, and these included books, paper, glass, and sugar. It did not run its course without important modifications in favor of protection, for it could not bind future Congresses, and the doctrine of the horizontal rate of 20 per cent.—a doctrine which has no scientific basis—produced an increase on many articles. It raised the cost of cheap woollens, much worn, and, as it did not provide for any other source of revenue, it was certain that it could not last. It was a compromise between Clay and Calhoun only, but it gave Calhoun the chance to say, as he did often, that the warlike attitude of South Carolina, in 1832, coerced national legislation. It taught Southerners to believe that a warlike attitude was all which was necessary; and the violation of the act in 1842 was used with immense force to justify the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It would lead me away from any present subject to unravel the effects of the tariff, but I insist strenuously upon this, that the political and financial history of the country are interwoven throughout, and that neither the currency nor the tariff nor the politics can be satisfactorily treated, save as a whole. Take the statistics, and review them in view of the tariff only, and your inferences are vitiated by the currency. Take the same data, and look at the currency only, and you go astray because you neglect the tariff. Neglect the political intrigues which wove the two together, and you cannot explain the motives of legislation. You argue from the authority of common conviction, when the true explanation is log-rolling.