The free-traders affirm that the excitement in the South and the sectional resistance to the tariff of 1828 show the impossibility of maintaining high duties. The protectionists reply that such an argument is begging the question, and is simply tantamount to admitting that protection is valuable if it can be upheld. The protectionists point to the fact that their system was not abandoned in 1832 upon a fair consideration of its intrinsic merits, but as a peace-offering to those who were threatening the destruction of the government if the duties were not lowered. Many protectionists believe that if Mr. Clay had been willing to give to General Jackson the glory of an absolute victory over the Nullifiers of South Carolina, the revenue system of the country would have been very different. They think however that the temptation to settle the question by compromise instead of permitting Jackson to settle it by force was perhaps too strong to be resisted by one who had so many reasons for opposing and hating the President. A more reasonable view held by another school of protectionists is that Mr. Clay did the wisest possible thing in withdrawing the tariff question from a controversy where it was complicated with so many other issues,--some of them bitter and personal. He justly feared that the protective principle might be irretrievably injured in the collision thought to be impending. He believed moreover that the best protective lesson would be taught by permitting the free-traders to enforce their theories for a season, trusting for permanent triumph to the popular re-action certain to follow. There was nothing in the legislation to show that Mr. Clay or his followers had in any degree abandoned or changed their faith in protective duties of their confidence in the ultimate decision of the public judgment. The protectionists aver that the evils which flowed from the free-trade tariff of 1833, thus forced on the country by extraneous considerations, were incalculably great, and negatively established the value of the tariff of 1828 which had been so unfairly destroyed. They maintain that it broke down the manufacturing interest, led to excessive importations, threw the balance of trade heavily against us, drained us of our specie, and directly led to the financial disasters of 1837 and the years ensuing. They further declare that this distressing situation was not relieved until the protective tariff of 1842 was passed, and that thenceforward, for the four years in which that Act was allowed to remain in force, the country enjoyed general prosperity,--a prosperity so marked and wide-spread that the opposing party had not dared to make an issue against the tariff in States where there was large investment in manufacturing.