"Next to currency problems no purely
economic subject has aroused so much
interest in the United States, and played
so great a part in political discussion both
in and out of Congress as the tariff policy
of the federal government. From the first
measure to raise a revenue from import
duties in 1789 until the present time no
generation of the American people has
escaped the tariff controversy." ¹ These
words of Guy S. Callender are perhaps
not quite as true today as when he wrote
them forty-four years ago, yet problems
of international trade restriction continue
to be political issues of major importance.
In recent times hardly a year has gone by
without a congressional battle over the
reciprocal trade agreement acts and the
struggle grows increasingly serious as
crucial issues of domestic and foreign
policy become involved. Thus those who
for military and strategic reasons wish to
restore the health of the Japanese econ-
omy urge the United States to lower, or
at least not to raise, trade barriers against
Japanese imports. On the other hand,
American business and labor groups
affected by Japanese competition clamor
for increased protection.

Though conditions have changed in
many respects since the initial major
struggle over the protective tariff took
place in this country in the decades fol-
lowing the War of 1812, there is much to
be learned from a study of that contro-
versy. This is especially true of the Tariff
of 1824. Before that time sectional divi-
sions on the issue had not yet hardened;
even John C. Calhoun had favored the
Tariff of 1816. But the impact of the de-
pression of 1819-1820, the rising manu-
facturing industries of New England and
the Middle States, and the rapid commit-
ment of the South to cotton growing had
by 1824 led to a clarification of interests
and viewpoints. These views were now
carefully formulated by the great sec-
tional leaders of the period and given
expression in public debates and speeches
which remain to this day a storehouse
of arguments for speakers on both sides
of the question. It is true that bitter
debates on this issue continued from
time to time, for the tariff has remained
a constantly recurring national problem.
But most of the issues were clearly spot-
lighted in 1824. Moreover, at this time
they were somewhat less complicated by
political intrigue as in 1828 or by nullifi-
cation as in the early 1830's. This, added
to the caliber of the participants in the
debate of 1824, has led to the focusing of
this volume on the 1820's, with special
attention to the Tariff of 1824.

The leading contention of the early
protectionists was, as in the arguments
for the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930,
that protection would alleviate the de-
pression in agriculture and industry. And
most of the other standard arguments
such as that for the home market, aid to

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