The clothing of the slave, the harness for the horses and mules, the ploughs, the rope, the bagging, the iron ties, were all, they contended, increased in price to the planter without any corresponding advance in the market value of the product.

In the beginning of the controversy it was expected that the manufacture of cotton would grow up side by side with its production, and that thus the community which produced the fibre would share in the profit of the fabric.

During this period the representatives from the Cotton States favored high duties; but as time wore on, and it became evident that slave-labor was not adapted to the factory, and that it was undesirable if not impossible to introduce free white labor with remunerative wages side by side with unpaid slave-labor, the leading minds of the South were turned against the manufacturing interest, and desired to legislate solely in aid of the agricultural interest.
It was this change in the South that produced the irritating discussions in Congress,--discussions always resulting in sectional bitterness and sometimes threatening the public safety.

The tariff question has in fact been more frequently and more elaborately debated than any other issue since the foundation of the Federal Government.

The present generation is more familiar with questions relating to slavery, to war, to reconstruction; but as these disappear by permanent adjustment the tariff returns, and is eagerly seized upon by both sides to the controversy.