Another history lesson. In 1865 the United States was devastated by four years of Civil War. Great Britain was the world’s premier military and economic power.
Thirty-five years later, in 1900, the United States was the greatest industrial power on the planet. It was also arguably the most innovative and creative economy whose inventors and companies were leading technological revolutions in many industries and would create an entire new industry (aerospace) in the next decade. It also had an emerging middle class, driving domestic demand for the stream of innovative new products flowing from America’s factories.
During that thirty five year period the US intentionally had the highest tariffs in its history. The purpose of the tariffs was to protect growth of manufacturing from predatory European firms seeking to export their wares to the fast growing U.S. market. In addition the federal government was fully funded by tariffs and duties. There was no individual or corporate income tax.
Military spending was also high during the 3 1/2 decades after the Civil War. The US government funded a military occupation of the southern states until 1876, fought successive wars with Native American nations during that period and maintained a string of military bases throughout the west to protect settlers, subdue native populations, and secure the southern border from invasion. The tariffs also supported the building of a great navy which allowed the U.S. to defeat a European power (Spain) in a global war and acquire the Philippines.
Academics and politicians conveniently overlook the economic policies in place when the U.S. emerged as the greatest economic power on the planet. They ignore sound money, backed by gold. They ignore fiscal responsibility by government. They ignore light regulation and the absence of the Federal Reserve. They also ignore the tax structure and the limited powers of the federal government. The federal government was not micromanaging the economy or the lives of people at the local level nor was it actively using punitive taxes on wealth creation to redistribute wealth.
We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries. We believe in protection as a national policy, with due and equal regard to all sections and to all classes. It is only by adherence to such a policy that the well being of the consumers can be safeguarded that there can be assured to American agriculture, to American labor and to American manufacturers a return to perpetrate American standards of life. A protective tariff is designed to support the high American economic level of life for the average family and to prevent a lowering to the levels of economic life prevailing in other lands.
In the history of the nation the protective tariff system has ever justified itself by restoring confidence, promoting industrial activity and employment, enormously increasing our purchasing power and bringing increased prosperity to all our people.
The tariff protection to our industry works for increased consumption of domestic agricultural products by an employed population instead of one unable to purchase the necessities of life. Without the strict maintenance of the tariff principle our farmers will need always to compete with cheap lands and cheap labor abroad and with lower standards of living.
That right there should have been a big warning sign that the whole plan was to turn the U.S. from a sovereign nation into a globalist empire. If you “acquire” a foreign land without turning it into new U.S. states, then tariffs in the U.S. completely undermine you.
The whole purpose of “acquiring” these foreign lands was to replace the cheap sources of labor that previously existed in the U.S. but was disappearing through the abolition of slavery and the introduction of labor laws here.