John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

While Dana showed no disposition to quarrel with the voting public, he was doubtless disappointed, if not surprised, at the returns. Withal, the successful candidate was still an untried man, while Dana himself was, if possible, more than ever an independent one. Although the general results of the election, in putting the Democrats into power and turning the Republicans out, might well have been claimed by him as a substantial victory, it did not relieve him, in his own mind, from the supreme duty of keeping his journal true to its policy of independence. Having always been intensely American in his feelings, Dana's unvarying practice was to advocate such policies as would tend to increase the wealth, power, and independence of the American people. Recognizing that the human family was not a solidarity, but was divided into races and nations for governmental purposes, he felt that his first duty was to do all in his power to develop the resources, diversify the industries, and increase the wealth of his own country. To this end he had always favored a protective tariff as against a tariff for revenue only. He held that from the earliest days of the Democratic party its policy had conformed to this principle, and that nothing had occurred to justify a radical departure from it. For this reason he never gave countenance to the tendency which began to-show itself in that direction with the appearance of an unusual surplus in the national treasury. To the contrary, he repudiated the party tendency towards free-trade legislation, and when the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives manifested its purpose to choose a free-trade Democrat for the office of speaker, he threw himself into the fight against Carlisle, of Kentucky, the party favorite, and favored Randall, of Pennsylvania, a life-long and very able protectionist.