but they have no such form and consistency as those of subsequent periods.  The result of the discussion was the tariff act of July 4, 1789, whose preamble stated one of its objects to be “the encouragement and protection of manufactures.”  Its average duty, however, was but about 8.5 per cent.  It was followed by other acts, each increasing the rate of general duties, until, at the outbreak of the War of 1812, the general rate was about 21 per cent.  The war added about 6 per cent, to this rate.

Growth toward democracy very commonly brings a curious bias toward protection, contrasted with the fundamental free-trade argument that a protective system and a system of slave labor have identical bases.  The bias toward a pronounced protective system in the United States makes its appearance with the rise of democracy; and, after the War of 1812, is complicated with party interests.  New England was still the citadel of Federalism.  The war and its blockade had fostered manufactures in New England; and the manufacturing interest, looking to the Democratic party for protection, was a possible force to sap the foundations of the citadel.  Dallas, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury, prepared, and Calhoun carried through Congress, the tariff of 1816.  It introduced several protective features, the “minimum” feature, by which the imported article was assumed to have cost at least a certain amount in calculating duties, and positive protection for cottons and woollens.  The duties paid under this tariff were about 30 per cent. on all imports, or 33 per cent. on dutiable goods.  In 1824 and 1828, under the lead of Clay, tariffs were adopted which made the tariff of duties still higher and more systematically protective; they touched high-water mark in 1830, being 40 per cent. on all imports, or 48.8 per cent. on dutiable goods.  The influence of nullification in forcing through the compromise tariff of 1833, with its regular decrease of duties for ten years, has been stated in the first volume.

Under the workings of the compromise tariff there was a steady decrease in the rate on all imports, but not in the rate on dutiable goods, the comparison being 22 per cent. on total to 32 per cent. on dutiable for 1833, and 16 per cent. on total to 32 per cent. on dutiable for 1841.  The conjunction of the increase in non-dutiable imports and the approach of free trade, with general financial distress, gave the Whigs success in the elections of 1840; and in 1841 they set about reviving protection.  Unluckily for them, their chosen President, Harrison, was dead, and his successor, Tyler, a Democrat by nature, taken up for political reasons by the Whigs, was deaf to Whig eloquence on the subject of the tariff.  After an unsuccessful effort to secure a high tariff and a distribution of the surplus among the States, the semi-protective tariff of 1842 became law.  Its result for the next four years was that the rate on dutiable goods was altered very little, while the rate on total imports rose from 16 per cent. to 26 per cent.  The return of the Democrats to power was marked by the passage of the revenue tariff of 1846, which lasted, with a slight further reduction of duties in 1857, until 1861.  Under its operation the rates steadily decreased until, in 1861, they were 18.14 per cent, on dutiable goods, and 11.79 per cent. on total imports.