modifying the tariff of 1842 on the table; and in their platform, while denying the right of the government to raise more than the necessary revenue, and to foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another, they did not even mention the tariff by name. They evidently did not mean to take the field as an anti-protection party. The manner in which, on the contrary, they continued to steal Clay's thunder, was amazing in its boldness.
The tariff of 1842 was very popular in Pennsylvania, and, indeed, much favored by the manufacturing interests in various Northern States. It had also many friends among the Democrats of Kentucky and Louisiana. Polk enjoyed the reputation of being a free-trader. The problem to be solved was to make him acceptable to both sides. Three weeks after the Democratic Convention he addressed a letter to J. K. Kane of Philadelphia, in which he first set forth his votes in Congress against the tariff of 1828, the “tariff of abominations,” his vote for the tariff of 1832 effecting a reduction of duties, and his vote for the compromise tariff of 1833. This was for the free-traders. Then he declared that, in his judgment, it was “the duty of the government to extend, so far as practicable, by its revenue laws and all other means within its power, fair and just protection to all the great interests of the whole Union, embracing agriculture, manufactures, the mechanic arts, commerce, and navigation.” This was for everybody,
