Made in America PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Tariffs Made America Great he slogan “Make America Great at U.S. ports to dump underpriced goods William McKinley, the veteran of An- Again” will, given the astonish- and to recapture the markets they’d lost. tietam who gave his name to the McKin- ing victory it produced for Don- Henry Clay and John Calhoun backed ley Tariff, declared four years before being ald Trump, be recorded among James Madison’s Tariff of 1816, as did ex- elected president: “Free trade results in Tthe most successful in political history. free traders Thomas Jefferson and John our giving our money…our manufactures Yet it raises a question: how did Amer- Adams. It worked. and our markets to other nations. …It will ica first become the world’s greatest eco- In 1816, the U.S. produced 840,000 bring widespread discontent. It will revo- nomic power? yards of cloth. By 1820, it was nearly lutionize our values.” In 1998, in The Great Betrayal: How 14 million yards. America had become Campaigning in 1892, McKinley said, American Sovereignty and Social Justice self-sufficient. “Open competition between high-paid Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Financing “internal improvements” American labor and poorly paid Europe- Global Economy, this writer sought to with tariffs on foreign goods would be- an labor will either drive out of existence explain. come known abroad as the “American American industry or lower American However, as the blazing issue of that day System.” wages.” was Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, Said Daniel Webster, “Protection of our Substitute “Asian labor” for “European it was no easy task to steer interviewers own labor against the cheaper, ill-paid, labor,” and is this not a fair description of around to the McKinley Tariff. half-fed, and pauper labor of Europe is…a what free trade did to U.S. manufacturing Free trade propaganda aside, what is duty which the country owes to its own these last 25 years? The results have been the historical truth? citizens.” some $12 trillion in trade deficits, arrested As our Revolution was about political This is economic patriotism, a conser- wages for our workers, six million manu- independence, the first words and acts of vatism of the heart. Globalists, cosmopo- facturing jobs lost, 55,000 factories and our constitutional republic were about en- lites, and one-worlders recoil at phrases plants shut down. suring America’s economic independence. like “America First.” McKinley’s future vice president Teddy “A free people should promote such Campaigning for Henry Clay, “The Roosevelt agreed with him: “Thank God I manufactures as tend to render them in- Father of the American System,” in 1844, am not a free trader.” dependent on others for essentials, espe- Abe Lincoln issued an impassioned plea: What did the protectionists produce? cially military supplies,” said President “Give us a protective tariff and we will From 1869 to 1900, GDP quadrupled. Washington in his first message to Con- have the greatest nation on earth.” Budget surpluses ran for 27 straight years. gress. Battling free trade during the Polk The U.S. debt was cut two-thirds to 7 per- The first major bill passed by Congress presidency, Congressman Lincoln said, cent of GDP. Commodity prices fell 58 was the Tariff Act of 1789. “Abandonment of the protective policy by percent. America’s population doubled, Weeks later, Washington imposed ton- the American Government must result in but real wages rose 53 percent. Economic nage taxes on all foreign shipping. The U.S. the increase of both useless labor and idle- growth averaged 4 percent a year. Merchant Marine was born. ness and…must produce want and ruin And the United States, which began In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander among our people.” this era with half of Britain’s production, Hamilton wrote in his famous Report on In our time, the abandonment of eco- ended it with twice Britain’s production. Manufactures: “The wealth…indepen- nomic patriotism produced in Middle Under Warren Harding, Cal Coolidge, dence, and security of a Country, appear America what Lincoln predicted, and and the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, GDP to be materially connected with the pros- what got Trump elected. growth between 1922 and 1927 hit 7 per- perity of manufactures. Every nation… From the Civil War to the 20th cen- cent, an all-time record. ought to endeavor to possess within itself tury, U.S. economic policy was grounded Economic patriotism put America first, all the essentials of national supply. These in the Morrill Tariffs, named for Vermont and made America first. compromise the means of subsistence, congressman and senator Justin Morrill Of GOP free traders, the steel magnate habitation, clothing, and defence.” who, as early as 1857, had declared: “I am Joseph Wharton, whose name graces the During the War of 1812, British mer- for ruling America for the benefit, first, of college Trump attended, said it well: “Re- chants lost their American markets. When Americans, and, for the ‘rest of mankind’ publicans who are shaky on protection are peace came, flotillas of British ships arrived afterwards.” shaky all over.” SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 15 Copyright of American Conservative is the property of American Conservative and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use..