The national debt being within two
or three years of liquidation, Calhoun threatening nullification, and
Jackson vetoing all internal improvement bills, it was necessary to
provide against an enormous surplus. Clay maintained that the
_protective_ duties should remain intact, and that only those duties
should be reduced which protected no American interest. This was done;
the revenue was reduced three millions; and the surplus was as
threatening as before. It was _impossible_ to save the protective
duties entire without raising too much revenue. Mr. Clay, as it seems
to us, should have plainly said this to the manufacturers, and
compelled his party in Congress to warn and save them by making a
judicious cut at the protective duties in 1832. This would have
deprived Calhoun of his pretext, and prepared the way for a safe and
gradual reduction of duties in the years following. Such was the
prosperity of the country in 1832, that the three millions lost to the
revenue by Mr. Clay's bill were likely to be made up to it in three
years by the mere increase in the imports and land sales.
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