“In 1860, after fourteen years of a revenue tariff, just the kind of a tariff that our political adversaries are advocating to-day, the business of the country was prostrated, agriculture was deplorably depressed, manufacturing was on the decline, and the poverty of the government, itself, made this Nation a by-word in the financial centers of the world. We neither had money nor credit. Both are essential; a nation can get on if it has abundant revenues, but if it has none it must have credit. We had neither as the legacy of the Democratic revenue tariff. We have both now. We have a surplus revenue and a spotless credit. I need not state what is so fresh in our minds, so recent in our history, as to be known to every gentleman who hears me, that from the inauguration of the protective tariff laws of 1861, the old Morrill tariff—which has brought to that veteran statesman the highest honor and will give to him his proudest monument—this condition changed. Confidence was restored, courage was inspired, the government started upon a progressive era under a system thoroughly American. “With a great war on our hands, with an army to enlist and prepare for service, with untold millions of money to supply, the protective tariff never failed us in a single emergency, and while money was flowing into our treasury to save the government, industries were springing up all over the land—the foundation and corner-stone of our prosperity and glory. With a debt of over $2,750,000,000 when the war terminated, holding on to our protective laws, against Democratic opposition, we have reduced that debt at an average rate of more than $62,000,000 each year, $174,000 every twenty-four hours for the last twenty-five years, and what looked like a burden almost impossible to bear has been removed under the Republican fiscal system, until now it is less than $1,000,000,000, and with the payment of this vast sum of money the Nation has not been impoverished, the individual citizen has not been burdened or bankrupted, National and individual prosperity have gone steadily on, until our wealth is so great as to be almost incomprehensible when put into figures.