It's curious that arguments that minimize the role of slavery aren't "relativist" and those that put the controversy over tariffs into perspective are.
When I say that many people were, "rightly or wrongly," understandably protectionists, I'm not slighting morality. I mean correctly or incorrectly according to the current state of economics.
Many people of the time, even if they had read or heard of Ricardo, would probably find Henry C. Carey more persuasive. Correctly or incorrectly, Ricardo and Malthus with their "iron laws" repelled as many people as they attracted.
The relativism is contained entirely in your comparisons of the sort. You brought up the slavery issue and framed it in a situation of comparative morality. Don't blame me for what you've started or for pointing it out to you.
When I say that many people were, "rightly or wrongly," understandably protectionists, I'm not slighting morality.
Yet you pulled in slavery doing exactly that.
Many people of the time, even if they had read or heard of Ricardo, would probably find Henry C. Carey more persuasive.
Only those who wanted to hear it. Carey was fundamentally unqualified to even weigh in on the issue and his theories were economic nonsense, but to those who made their livelihoods off of government perks through protection, it was exactly what they wanted to hear.