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.
The free-traders consider the tariff of 1846 to be a conclusive proof the beneficial effect of low duties.

They challenge a comparison of the years of its operation, between 1846 and 1857, with any other equal period in the history of the country.
Manufacturing, they say, was not forced by a hot-house process to produce high-priced goods for popular consumption, but was gradually encouraged and developed on a healthful and self-sustaining basis, not to be shaken as a reed in the wind by every change in the financial world.

Commerce, as they point out, made great advances, and our carrying trade grew so rapidly that in ten years from the day the tariff of 1846 was passed our tonnage exceeded the tonnage of England.

The free-traders refer with especial emphasis to what the term the symmetrical development of all the great interests of the country under this liberal tariff.

Manufactures were not stimulated at the expense of the commercial interest.