ABSTRACT
The tariff of 1846 was intended to put an end to protection - to entirely annihilate a policy which had been approved by people's best and wisest statesmen, and by an immense majority of the people. It was not designed that the work of destruction should be accomplished by a single blow, for fear of recoil; but that free trade should be gradually approached through the pretense of a tariff for revenue only. It is incontestably true that trade between nations, to be extensive, must be beneficial to both. A fair exchange of the productions of one for the other, can alone produce that result. The act reduced the duties, the avowed pretense being that thereby the revenue would be increased. Whatsoever of discrimination it contained was intended for revenue only, and against all kinds of domestic industry, especially manufactures.
