Mark Hanna Quotes
As long as I remain in the Senate and can raise a hand to stop you, you will never touch a schedule of the Tariff Act.
Most Republicans at the time were beholden to corporations and business who then demanded high tariffs and other protectionisms so they could maintain high prices and not have to compete with British and European imports. Roosevelt and a few other reform Republicans were free traders along with most Democrats. Roosevelt had so many other reforms in the fire that he decided not to take this one on at the same time and thought that the benefit would not be good enough for the nation to offset the open civil war of the Republican Party that would ensue. In the latter half of the 20th century, large American companies had opened or invested in foreign corporations and/or were manufacturing many of their products abroad. So they then advocated free trade. When they did, the Republican Party flip flopped and adopted free trade as one of its basic principles. Meanwhile, the Democrats who were free traders in the early 20th Century had become protectionists by the end of the 20th century as labor movement wanted to protect American jobs.
Mark A. Hanna, 1837-1904, Chairman, Republican National Committee, U. S. Senator (Republican, OH), Quoted in Edmond Morris, Theodore Rex
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The same problem has always existed with full scale trade wars always a possibility.
The U. S. was very protectionist in its early history. Grant overestimated the time that it would take for us to change by about 100 years.
The issue of free trade verses protectionism has been with us throughout American history with national sentiments going one way and then later the other, only to come back and the cycle has gone on. Floyd was very modern in his economic views, so much so that he, even as a Southern politician, opposed slavery on the grounds that it was economically inefficient and the South would never develop industrially if it had no incentive, as existed in the North and England, to reduce the amount of labor required for economic opportunity. He was right on that point as well.
South Carolina did not like the protectionist measures that Congress had passed. Although the Federal Government clearly had the Constitutional authority to regulate interstate and international commerce, South Carolina, led by John C. Calhoun, took the position that any state could nullify a Federal law’s application within their state. Clearly, that was a vision of a nation that would have very different from our history where the Federal Courts were the only institution that could nullify an act of Congress anywhere.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Republicans at that time were adamant protectionists and were violently opposed to free trade. They made a total flip flop on free trade after the Second Word War when the industrial capacity of all of the major industrial nations except America was completely emaciated. America still had production and there was huge money to be made from being the only nation that could deliver goods to the world. Meanwhile Germany, France, England, and Italy, our largest competitors could hardly manufacture for their own needs and could not compete in the American market. So the American corporations then wanted to become free traders.
In this case the tariffs were imposed not to protect national industries but to simply raise revenue. In the early years of the United States, almost all of the Federal Revenue was raised this way.
Note that in the beginning of the 20th century, the Democrats were the free traders opposing protectionism while the Republicans advocated strong protectionism to protect American companies. By the end of the 20th Century, both parties had flip flopped and taken the other’s position.
At that period of American History, the Republicans supported high tariffs and protectionism for American companies and it was the Democrats who were the advocates of free trade. Later each of the parties would flip flop their positions and then say that they were advocating their traditional principles.
The revenue laws he referred to were tariff duties on foreign imports that were instituted to protect fledgling American domestic manufacturers. The problem was that at the same time as it helped the manufacturers, it caused everyone to pay higher prices. Worse, it destroyed the business of the importers, and the retail merchants who specialized in fine European imports. It also hurt the shipping business so owners and sailors alike were damaged. Maritime and importing states were outraged and if enough people did not support the tariffs, smuggling would increase. Polarization and controversy were rife at the time. Unlike today conservatives tended to be for the protectionist tariffs and the left wing tended to be for free trade. Jackson insisted that the law be obeyed, but he wanted Congress to pay attention to the damaged forces.
1st Earl of Beaconsfield
In addition the companies that are being protected suffer by not getting competitive and not utilizing the most modern and most efficient techniques. Even construction workers are hurt as protected companies do not modernize their facilities as often and build new plants.
There has always been pressure from different interests to exempt certain products from duty and place higher duties on others. Calhoun urged a policy that would be based on general economic prinicples and conditions and not on pressure from special vested interests. He was a senator at the time.
Marcus Alonzo Hanna was an American businessman and Republican politician who served as a United States Senator from Ohio as well as chairman of the Republican National Committee. A friend and political ally of President William McKinley, Hanna used his wealth and business skills to successfully manage McKinley's presidential campaigns in 1896 and 1900.
