Replies

The Real Henry Clay: The Corrupt American Architect of Mercantilism and Protectionism

It is well documented that both Henry Clay and Daniel Webster received kickbacks for their service to the agenda of the national bank. Both were in the back pocket of the Second Bank of the United States, and received kickbacks and other compensation from the corrupt bank director Nicholas Biddle. Andrew Jackson rightly saw it as a corrupting influence upon the body politic to be dispensed with.

It should not come as surprise to many that Abraham Lincoln considered himself to be a heartfelt admirer of Henry Clay, and he made Clay his exemplar. During 1852, at his death, Abraham Lincoln eulogized Clay as “the beau ideal of a statesman” and the “great parent of Whig Principles.” Lincoln was conscious in making Clay as his political archetype, in noting: “During my whole political life, I loved and revered [Clay] as a teacher and leader.” When the Whig Party was fractured in the sectional strife, out of the ashes arose the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln took up the mantle of the American System, and he supported some of the most onerous tariff increases in American history. The Morrill Tariff of 1861 was a protectionist tariff bill passed by the U.S. Congress in early 1861. The main purpose was the protection and encouragement of a cadre of northeastern manufacturing interests. Not surprisingly, 87% of the northern congressmen supported the bill and 87.5% of southern congressmen opposed it. As historian Frank Tausig observes, the schedule of the Morrill Tariff and its two successor bills were retained long after the end of the war. Whereas tariffs were around rates of 18–20% on average in the 1820s, the Morrill Tariff raised the average rates to 36.2%, and it was subsequently revised upward in 1864, and the average rate stood at 47.56%.

The Real Henry Clay: The Corrupt American Architect of Mercantilism and Protectionism

"a cadre of northeastern manufacturing interests" which we have now come to know as the "Globalist Elite." The Pullers of the GOPe strings.

Henry Clay: National Socialist

But Henry Clay can only be considered to be a "conservative" if conservatives embrace the economics of national socialism, for that is what Clay devoted his entire forty-year political career to.

Lincoln was the first Republican president and considered himself the political heir to Clay, whom Lincoln eulogized in 1852 as "the beau ideal of a statesman" and the "great parent of Whig Principles." "During my whole political life," Lincoln stated, "I have loved and revered [Clay] as a teacher and leader."
"From the moment Lincoln first entered political life," writes Lincoln biographer Robert W. Johannsen, "he had demonstrated an unswerving fidelity to the party of Henry Clay and to Clay's American System, the program of internal improvements [i.e., corporate welfare for railroad and steamship businesses], protective tariffs, and centralized banking."
Clay was a corrupt statist who spent his political career promoting mercantilism, protectionism, inflationary finance through central banking, and military adventurism in the quest for empire. Upon entering Congress in 1811 he helped persuade the government to attempt to conquer Canada, which it tried to do three times. He waged a thirty-year battle with James Madison, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, and other defenders of the Constitution over federally funded corporate welfare.

https://mises.org/library/henry-clay-national-socialist

The Morrill Tariff of 1861 was a protectionist tariff bill passed by the U.S. Congress in early 1861. The main purpose was the protection and encouragement of a cadre of northeastern manufacturing interests.

Not surprisingly, 87% of the northern congressmen supported the bill and 87.5% of southern congressmen opposed it.

As historian Frank Tausig observes, the schedule of the Morrill Tariff and its two successor bills were retained long after the end of the war. Whereas tariffs were around rates of 18–20% on average in the 1820s, the Morrill Tariff raised the average rates to 36.2%, and it was subsequently revised upward in 1864, and the average rate stood at 47.56%.

The Real Henry Clay: The Corrupt American Architect of Mercantilism and Protectionism

OUT-STANDING research and historical indictments! The Morrell Tax was legalized extortion. The voting of northern Congressmen vs. Southern Congressmen says volumes.

DL, for whatever reason, FR's pro-Lincoln historical revisionists absolutely ignore "The-Game-Within-The-Game" within historical context. Even when you do the math for them.

Why won't they admit that they just may just be wrong about the motivation and reason for Lincoln and his cadre of northern/Yankee industrialists facilitating the un-necessary brutality of Civil War? My guess is "Santa Claus Syndrome".

The more facts unearthed and revealed, the more evil and compromised Lincoln becomes. Sure -- he could be extremely articulate, compassionate and even sincere at time as we've seen. But I truly wonder whether he was in a proper state of mind.

Was he greedy? Was it possible that he'd found himself "compromised" thus blackmailed in certain respects? WAS Abraham Lincoln bi-polar? I think we can all agree he as a tortured soul.

"a cadre of northeastern manufacturing interests" which we have now come to know as the "Globalist Elite." The Pullers of the GOPe strings.

No question that there's been a line of secession maintained by these very same original "Elites"; They are indeed the ancestral root of today's GOPe pro-illegal immigration/cheap labor express and NAFTA/TPP/UN supporters.

DiogenesLamp: "Whereas tariffs were around rates of 18–20% on average in the 1820s, the Morrill Tariff raised the average rates to 36.2%, and it was subsequently revised upward in 1864, and the average rate stood at 47.56%."

Sorry, but if you cherry-pick numbers you can make them say whatever you wish.
So here is a source which compares average rates from Day One.
Note they peaked at 35% in 1830 the "tariff of abominations" then again at 44% in 1865 as a result of Civil War.
But the average rate in 1863, even after the Second Morrill Tariff was 25.9% and that was passed after the Confederacy declared war on the United States.

Point is: the original 1859 Morrill proposal and even the First Morrill law were both significantly less than the 25.9% overall average of 1863.

DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln took up the mantle of the American System, and he supported some of the most onerous tariff increases in American history."

It's a fact of history -- long trumpeted by such pontificators as Patrick Buchanan -- that the era of highest Republican tariffs (1865 through 1900) was also the era of fastest US economic growth, growth rivaling any we see today in such developing countries as China or India.

DiogenesLamp: "It is well documented that both Henry Clay and Daniel Webster received kickbacks for their service to the agenda of the national bank."

Both Kentucky Senator Clay and Massachusetts Senator Webster were Whigs, meaning successors to Northern Federalists and predecessors to Republicans.
That was also Lincoln's party before Whigs separated over slavery into Northern and Southern branches, and Lincoln became Republican.

So the basic Republican economic program, inherited from Whigs, called for higher tariffs to protect US producers.
Note: that did not mean just Northern producers, but all US producers, regardless of region, and included such items as Southern sugar, which is still protected to this very day!

Whether Clay & Webster were any more corrupt than your average politician of that day, I couldn't say.
But it does seem to put the lie to DiogenesLamp's claim that our "Gilded Age" "robber barons" were "the most corrupt in history".

Sadly, as the Bible tells us, humans have been sinners for thousands of years, and so it is highly unlikely that any one generation was statistically more or less corrupt than any others, except where corruption ruled from the top -- as it would, for example in a Hillary administration.

But what is most curious on a conservative site like Free Republic is our pro-Confederates invariably taking the side of Democrats over those Federalists / Whigs / Republicans who supported greater US economic self sufficiency.