ABSTRACT
The election of Mr. Polk to the Presidency took the country - including his own supporters - by surprise. The most that could be claimed for him was that he occupied a respectable position among public men of the second class. As the consequence of Mr. Polk's election, the issue between the rival principles of protection and free trade was made, immediately and sharply. It was precisely the same as that made and decided under General Jackson's administration, with this single exception, that protection was to be destroyed within the Union and by Congressional legislation, instead of by nullification and a dissolution of the Union. Some of the friends of protection, by way of concession, and in the same spirit which led to the compromise of 1833, did not object that a full trial should be given to the principle of ad valorem duties, as it had been made part of that compromise.
