Before proceeding to describe the birth of this superior social class, and the method of its organization, for which information we are indebted to this Prince of Cooks and Coats--McAllister--it is desirable to regard in a political way this local would-be aristocrat, the manufacturer. He imagines that Protection, the tariff, by which he has been enabled to amass the wealth, as the foundation upon which he bases his claim to a more exalted position, socially, than his fellow citizens, is entirely due to the doctrines of the Republican party. He loses sight of the fact that the Republican party did not owe its origin to Protection. The Abraham Lincoln Republican party did not owe its victory and popularity in the hearts of the people to Protection. There were other causes which operated powerfully in producing the result of the election in 1860; but the manufacturer of that little village, before mentioned, absorbed by the one idea that Protection has been the one cause of his success, and that it was due to the Republican party, becomes oblivious to the fact that the necessities of the Government, during a war to preserve the Federal Union, became so great that revenue had to be derived from some source, and that many of the duties imposed upon foreign importations by the Republican party had for their cause the stern necessity of the soldiers in the field, fighting to preserve the Union; that the war was not a battle for Protection. It had for its origin other and very different causes.
The war, which had been the outgrowth of the election of the candidate of the Republican party, created expenses which the Republican administration had to meet, and as a means to that end it became necessary to increase the existing duty and to place new duties upon imported manufactured articles. And by so doing they carried to a successful termination the great struggle for the preservation of the Union, to which the Republican party had pledged itself; which, together with the inclination and desire of some of the prominent members of the Republican party to increase the manufacturing industries of the country, has brought about that Protection and tariff by which he, the village manufacturer, has profited. He never stops to consider whether the tariff was a means to the end so profoundly desired, the preservation of the Union, a means of furnishing sinews of war by which the stars were retained upon our flag. He regards the tariff and Protection only in its personal aspect. The Republican party, to him, means his benefactor, to whom he owes an eternal debt of gratitude for enabling him to acquire that which, without Protection and tariff, he never could have obtained in the open field of the commercial battle wherein the world at large may contend. The position held by great thinkers of the Abraham Lincoln period is utterly unappreciated by him. That this tariff and Protection, which has been such a boon to him, was not created for his especial benefit, never suggests itself to his mind; that men of the Lincoln day and stamp should have had in view only the preservation of the Union and creating a fund to pay the expenses of those engaged to accomplish that end, does not occur to the village manufacturer.