Mr. Buchanan’s position in this Congress required him to exert his powers as a debater more than ever before. The House of Representatives was at this time a body in which real debate was carried on upon some subjects, however the discussion on “retrenchment” may be characterized. Its discussions on the tariff, commencing on the 4th of March and terminating on the 15th of May, were conducted with great ability. Among the best speeches on the tariff bill of this session, there is one by Mr. Peleg Sprague of Maine, and one by Mr. Buchanan. Both exhibit a great deal of research. Mr. Buchanan’s speech, begun in Committee of the Whole on the 2d of April, in answer to Mr. Sprague, is an excellent specimen of business debate. The details on which these two gentlemen differed, and on which the debate between them and others chiefly turned, are of little interest now; nor does any tariff debate afford much development of permanent principles. So varying are the circumstances which from time to time give rise to an application of the doctrines that are indicated by the terms “free-trade” and “protection.” Still there may be found in this tariff speech of Mr. Buchanan, matter which is of some interest in his personal history as an American statesman, because it shows that he had now risen to the rank of a statesman, and because it gives his general views of what had at this time become known as “the American System.” Mr. Buchanan, on this occasion, felt that he was combating a disposition to favor certain interests at the expense of others. In the debate on the tariff of 1824, when Mr. Clay developed his views on the subject of protection, and Mr. Webster found fault with the details of a measure which he said could not be properly characterized as an American System, Mr. Buchanan had shown that while he was ready to accede to a tariff for the incidental protection of our own manufactures, he was not disposed to carry the doctrines of protection so far as to injure the agricultural classes; but that in imposing the duties necessary to defray the expenses of the government, he should take care to benefit indirectly both the manufacturing and the producing interests. In 1828 the proposed alterations of the tariff aimed at a more uniform operation of the customs duties upon all the great interests of the country. A motion made by Mr. Sprague, to strike from the bill an additional duty of five cents per gallon on molasses, and twenty-five dollars per ton on hemp, led to a discussion on the navigating interests, as affected by such an amendment, and the whole subject of what was meant by protection and “the American system” came up afresh. The following extracts from Mr. Buchanan’s speech afford fair specimens of his manner of dealing with this subject: