Clay, who, as a protectionist, had, after all, some clear ideas in his head,—namely, that “the admission, free of duty, of every article which aids the operations of the manufacturers” is one of the most effective methods of protection,—should have been entirely consigned to oblivion?
Nothing is more natural than that the manufacturer to whom the promised protection has thus become ineffective by the protection of something else—as, in fact, it has to not a few—should rush up to Congress, clamoring for still higher duties and renewed tariff tinkering. You may take it as a general principle that, when under a protective tariff the protection of one industry works to the prejudice of another protected industry, the tendency will always be in the direction of higher duties.
All these agencies coöperated in making each protective tariff appear insufficient when it had been for a while in practical operation, and to excite a pressing demand for a new and higher one. And thus it happened that during the period I have described even the prosperous times under the protective policy were not free from a restless dissatisfaction with the laws as they stood, and from ever-recurring disturbances of existing business arrangements,—an evil which constantly increased as protective duties grew higher.
Another peculiarity, and a more serious one, of the prosperity during that protective period,—always excepting the first part of it, when the tariff was the lowest we ever had,—consisted in the fact that, as the duties rose, a feeling grew up with them that some interests were promoted by “legislative favors,” at the expense of others. Especially the agriculturists began to complain that they had to buy the things they needed in a market in which prices were artificially and, in many cases, exorbitantly raised by protection, while they had to sell their products in a
