The effect of these provisions was to insure to the United States a freedom of trade beyond that enjoyed by any other nation.

Fifty-five millions of American people (in 1884), over an area nearly as large as the entire continent of Europe, carry on their exchanges by ocean, by lake, by river, by rail, without the exactions of the tax-gatherer, without the detention of the custom house, without even the recognition of State lines.
In these great channels, the domestic exchanges represent an annual value perhaps twenty-five times as great as the total of exports and imports.

It is the enjoyment of free-trade and protection at the same time which has contributed to the unexampled development and marvelous prosperity of the United States.
OPERATION OF PROTECTIVE LAWS.
The essential question which has grown up between political parties in the United States respecting our foreign trade, is whether a duty should be laid upon any import for the direct object of protecting and encouraging the manufacture of the same article at home.

The party opposed to this theory does not advocate the admission of the article free, but insists upon such rate of duty as will produce the largest revenue and at the same time afford what is termed "incidental protection." The advocates of actual free-trade according to the policy of England--taxing only those articles which are not produced at home--are few in number, and are principally confined to _doctrinaires_.

The instincts of the masses of both parties are against them.