The era of low tariff.
In 1846 the economic battle had been won so completely that in 1857 tariff burdens were still further reduced;
Massachusetts voting with
Virginia to this end. The leaders of both parties then joined in enacting the lowest revenue tariff which had been known since 1820.
The result was an era of prosperity, not for a part, but for the whole.
Dogma was put to rout by the event.
The fallacy of hostile views was transfixed by the result.
The retort to the prophecy of evil was the superlative satire of fact.
Experience had been the great expounder.
From the end of the war with
Mexico to the beginning of the war between the States, had it not been for the war waged by one-half of the States upon the domestic institutions of the other, the
Union would have been in the happy state of having no annals; no financial, no economic issue; no broil with foreign parts; no anarchy at home.
There is no pillow of rest for freedom.