MONOPOLY OF TRADE THE TARIFF. 631 



doubled at a stroke. The genuine high protective system 

 was adopted in 1816, under the influence of Calhoun, who 

 bitterly regretted it. Webster was a free trader when the 

 tariff was raised in 1824, Dut faced about and helped to 

 raise it again in 1828. This was called the Tariff of Abom- 

 inations, because the free traders tried to kill it by loading 

 it down with abominations, but to their surprise it passed 

 with all its sins upon it. It almost led to war, and did 

 lead to the compromise tariff of 1833, which proposed a 

 gradual horizontal reduction. 



u ln 1842 the Whigs raised the tariff; in 1846 the Dem- 

 ocrats reduced it; in 1857 the new Republican party had 

 got control of the Lower House, and, with Democratic 

 help, reduced the tariff again to the lowest point reached 

 since 1816. Four years later they adopted the Morrill, or 

 war, tariff, and gradually raised it until 1867; ^ ts extremest 

 features being adopted after the war was over. In 1872 

 they passed a horizontal reduction of ten per cent, which 

 they repealed two years later. In 1882 they appointed a 

 tariff commission, and it recommended a reduction which 

 would have left the average rate about 30 per cent, on 

 dutiable goods. On the 3rd of March, 1883, they passed a 

 law which reduced some duties and raised others, among 

 them, as will be seen by the table, those on glassware and 

 earthenware, but leaving the general average about the 

 same. All subsequent reduction bills have failed to pass 

 the Lower House until Saturday, July 2ist, 1888, when the 

 Mills bill, freeing wool, lumber and some other things, and 

 calculated to reduce the average rate on dutiable imports 

 to forty-two per cent., was passed by a vote of 162 to 149." 



It is very strange, indeed, if the tariff is the "great 

 and overshadowing" issue, that our statesmen have been 

 so obtuse as not to discover this fact before. It seemed to 

 dawn on their minds u all of a sudden," and immediately 

 preceding a national campaign. The national banking 



