Among those who responded with the greatest cordiality and promptness to the new demand were the distinguished statesmen of the preceding Congress, and conspicuous among them Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Lowndes, and Cheves. It will excite some surprise at the present day, in consideration of the political history of the last thirty years, to find how little difference as to leading measures existed in 1816 between these distinguished statesmen. No line of general party difference separated the members of the first Congress after the peace. The great measures brought forward were a national bank, internal improvement, and a protective tariff. On these various subjects members divided, not in accordance with any party organization, but from individual convictions, supposed sectional interests, and general public grounds. On the two first-named subjects no systematic difference of views disclosed itself between the great Northern and Southern leaders; on the third alone there was diversity of opinion. In the Northern States considerable advances had been made in manufacturing industry, in different places, especially at Waltham (Mass.); but a great manufacturing interest had not yet grown up. The strength of this interest as yet lay mainly in Pennsylvania. Navigation and foreign trade were the leading pursuits of the North; and these interests, it was feared, would suffer from the attempt to build up manufactures by a protective tariff. It is accordingly a well-known fact, which may teach all to entertain opinions on public questions with some distrust of their own judgment, that the tariff of 1816, containing the _minimum_ duty on coarse cotton fabrics, the corner-stone of the protective system, was supported by Mr. Calhoun and a few other Southern members, and carried by their influence against the opposition of the New England members generally, including Mr. Webster. It has been stated, that, during the pendency of this law before Congress, he denied the constitutionality of a tariff for protection. This statement is inaccurate; although, had it been true, it would have placed him only in the same relation to the question with Mr. Calhoun and other Southern members, who at that time admitted the principle of protection, but lived to reject it as the grossest and most pernicious constitutional heresy. It would have shown only that, in a long political career, he had, on the first discussion of a new question, expressed an opinion which, in the lapse of time and under a change of circumstances, he had seen occasion to alter. This is no ground of just reproach. It has happened to every public man in every free country, who has been of importance enough to have his early opinions remembered. It has happened to a large portion of the prominent men at the South, in reference to almost every great question agitated within the last generation. The bank, internal improvements, a navy, the