It is perfectly ridiculous to hear it asserted that the people of the United States voted against the Republican party in sufficient numbers to create a political revolution by reason of the fact that they had learned sufficient to become convinced, founding their conviction upon information and reason, that Free Trade was preferable to Protection.
The average American voter would be as lost in an argument upon the subject of political economy as would a disputant regarding a legal proposition who had never heard of Blackstone or Kent, because the average American citizen has never read one line of Adam Smith, John Stewart Mill, or, in fact, any of the hand-books of political economy.
The conclusion to be drawn from the assertion that the people of the United States had become convinced that it was beneficial to them to have Free Trade is groundless. The Republican party had certainly the advantage in the argument, because, under the existing state of our tariff laws, the country is and was prosperous, wages were higher, a greater sum of money was deposited in the savings banks by the laboring classes than ever before in the history of our country. Now, these good things, representing a prosperous condition, actually existed and do exist under the Protection policy of the Republican party. It is hard to believe that the mass of our fellow-citizens would be led away by the simple desire for an “experimental change.” It is hard to convince any man (when you select an individual) that he shall forsake a business or occupation which he knows furnishes him with a competency, to embark into some new and untried venture, forsaking that which he already knows furnishes him with a sufficiency, for that which is speculative.
Now, this is exactly what the Republican party, as represented by the Republican newspapers, is trying to preach as the cause of the defeat of the Republican party last November. In other words, the press of the Republican party assumes that, collectively, the people of the Union are more utterly ignorant, stupid, and absurd than they would be when acting as individuals, which, of course, is ridiculous.
It was not a question of the pocketbook with the masses. It was not a question whether they were doing better by reason of the Protective policy of the Republican party than they could hope to do under the Free Trade policy enunciated by the Democratic party. It was a clear-cut proposition: Shall we allow longer the accumulation of money in the hands of a few families, who are assuming before us and flaunting in our faces their claim to a social superiority, making a sham aristocracy, “caste,” in our country? It was not the pocketbook, for with regard to that proposition there can be no doubt that the American characteristic, “shrewdness in business,” would have inclined every voter to let well enough alone.