discountenanced the progress of this policy_.... Under this angry
denunciation against her the act of 1824 passed. Now the imputation
is of a precisely opposite character.... Both charges, sir, are
equally without the slightest foundation. The opinion of New
England up to 1824 was founded in the conviction that, on the
whole, it was wisest and best, both for herself and others, that
manufactures should make haste slowly.... When, at the commencement
of the late war, duties were doubled, we were told that we should
find a mitigation of the weight of taxation in the new aid and
succor which would be thus afforded to our own manufacturing labor.
Like arguments were urged, and prevailed, but not by the aid of New
England votes, when the tariff was afterwards arranged at the
close of the war in 1816. Finally, after a winter's deliberation,
the act of 1824 received the sanction of both Houses of Congress
and settled the policy of the country. What, then, was New England
to do?... Was she to hold out forever against the course of the
government, and see herself losing on one side and yet make no
effort to sustain herself on the other? No, sir. Nothing was left
to New England but to conform herself to the will of others.
Nothing was left to her but to consider that the government had
fixed and determined its own policy; and that policy was
_protection_.... I believe, sir, almost every man from New England
who voted against the law of 1824 declared that if, notwithstanding
his opposition to that law, it should still pass, there would be no
alternative but to consider the course and policy of the government
as then settled and fixed, and to act accordingly. The law did
pass; and a vast increase of investment in manufacturing
establishments was the consequence."

Opinion in New England changed for good and sufficient business reasons,