In 1816, notwithstanding it had just emerged from war, the country's industrial condition was at least hopeful, but the consequences of the tariff of that year promptly manifested themselves. The American manufacturer was undersold at the door of his mill by the foreigner; factories closed, wages shrunk and the demand for labor diminished. Prices of all kinds of planter's and farmer's produce declined in turn, and to industrial prostration was speedily added agricultural depression. Henry Clay pronounced the seven years preceding 1824 the most disastrous this nation had ever known. But almost from the moment of its passage the country felt the impetus of the protective tariff of 1828. Furnace doors were thrown open; foundries were built; the cobwebs that had gathered about factory machinery disappeared in the whir of busy wheels; labor came again into demand; immigration increased; the products of farms and plantations brought good prices; and the public revenue grew until the national debt was extinguished. Prosperity thus became universal throughout the land. When this protective tariff of 1828 gave way to the gradual reductions in duties of the compromise measure of 1832, there followed a repetition of the scenes that succeeded the tariff of 1816. From 1837 to 1842 mills and furnaces were closed, wages were reduced, laborers sought in vain for employment, the poor-houses were filled and manufacturers, farmers and planters became bankrupts together. Even the public treasury was unable to borrow at home as small a sum as $1,000,000 at any rate of interest, and the great banking houses of Europe refused it credit, so that it was forced to the humiliation of selling its securities at ruinous discounts. The passage of the protective tariff of 1842 marks the date of another business revival. Old mines were re-worked and new ones were opened. Mill-fires were re-lighted and new mills sprang up in all directions. Money became abundant, and public and private incomes exceeded all precedent. Farmers and planters secured easy markets and ample prices for their produce, and laborers' homes grew bright with plenty. Then came the Free-Trade tariff of 1846 and the commercial decadence which culminated in the disasters of 1857. California and its gold delayed the catastrophe but could not avert it. From the moment of the repeal of the protective tariff, the inflow of British iron and cloth began and the receding tide carried back American gold, impoverishing the country. Industry was stricken to the earth, and day by day saw the dependence of the United States on foreign markets growing until when the crash came it was complete. The vast flood of gold from California had gone into European vaults and in its stead could only be shown receipts for foreign goods consumed and the wrecks of American industries. The Morrill tariff was followed by an unparalleled mercantile and manufacturing development, which not even the disastrous