PARTY necessity and Party pride of opinion have done their work. The last of the wise and benignant measures of general policy, consummated by the Twenty-Seventh Congress, has been overthrown by the Congress of 1846, under the immediate direction and prompting of the President and Secretary of the Treasury. That which the party now fully in power dared not do when the election of 1844 was pending-dared not even manifest a wish to do by passing a bill through the House, in which their majority was very great-they have not hesitated to do when placed beyond the immediate reach of public reprobation. When the votes of Pennsylvania and New York were indispensable to the election of Polk and the Annexation of Texas, a bill to subvert the tariff of 1842 was decisively laid on the table in a House twothirds hostile to the Whig party and its champion; but when the votes of these States had been secured, and thereby the election of Polk and Dallas, the mask was thrown off altogether, and the measure which the dominant party dared not evince a wish to repeal in 1844, falls beneath the weight of its overwhelming power in 1846. And, as an introduction to our review of the recent act of Congress and the Executive, we have deemed appropriate a republication of the famous letter of Mr. candidate-for-President Polk, in 1844, to his friend and supporter, Mr. Kane, of Pennsylvania. Many

of our readers will doubtless be glad to have that letter in a convenient shape for enduring record and convenient reference. Now that its purpose is consummated, it is fit that we inquire how well the expectations which it was skillfully framed to excite are satisfied in the events which it has been made to accomplish. This letter appears on its face to have been written in answer to one of inquiry from Mr. Kane; but that letter of inquiry the public have not been permitted to see. The writer of this made personal application to Mr. Kane for a copy or a sight of it, at a time (February, 1845) when its publication was recent and its purposes only on the eve of consummation-at a time, too, when the inquirer, duly introduced and courteously received, was a sojourner under the same roof with Mr. Polk as well as Mr. Kane. The last-named was urged to take into consideration the various and contradictory interpretations which had been given to the response of Mr. Polk, and the light which the publication of the friendly queries to which it was plainly a reply could not fail to shed on the true and full meaning of the reply itself. All was fruitless, utterly. The letter of Kane to Polk could not be obtained. That of Polk to Kane, howeverthe willfully severed half of this important correspondence-having been given to the public very soon after its reception by Mr. Kane in Philadelphia, and multiplied by millions of copies in every part

of the Union, cannot now, by any possibility, be shrouded from the public view. It is as follows:

(Mr. J. K. Polk to Mr. J. K. Kane.) "COLUMBIA, Tenn., June 19th, 1844.

"Dear Sir:-I have received recently several letters in reference to my opinions on the subject of the Tariff; and among others yours of the 10th ultimo. My opinions on this subject have been often given to the public. They are to be found in my public acts and in the public discussions in which I have participated. I am in favor of a tariff for revenue, such a one as will yield a sufficient amount to the Treasury to defray the expenses of Government economically administered. In adjusting the details of a revenue tariff, I have heretofore sanctioned such moderate, discriminating duties, as would produce the amount of revenue needed, and at the same time afford reasonable incidental protection to our home industry. I am opposed to a tariff for protection merely, and not for revenue. Acting upon these general principles, it is well known that I gave my support to the policy of General Jackson's administration on this subject. I voted against the Tariff act of 1828. I voted for the act of 1832, which contained modifications of some of

the objectionable provisions of the act of 1828. As a member of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, I gave my assent to a bill reported by that committee in December, 1832, making further modifications of the act of 1828, and making also discriminations in the imposition of the duties which it proposed. That bill did not pass, but was superseded by the bill commonly called the Compromise Bill, for which I voted. In my judgment, it is the duty of the Government to extend, as far as it may be practicable to do so, by its revenue laws and all other means within its power, fair and just protection to all the great interests of the whole Union, embracing Agriculture, Manufactures, and the Mechanic Arts, Commerce and Navigation. I heartily approve the resolutions upon this subject passed by the Democratic National Convention, lately

assembled at Baltimore.

I am, with great respect,
Dear Sir, your ob't servant,
JAMES K. POLK.
"John K. Kane, Esq., Philadelphia."

Such was the ground on which Mr. Polk deliberately planted himself in the canvass in which he was a prominent candidate for the Presidency. Surely, no honest man-no decent pretender to honesty will insist that it is practicable to reconcile all the words here used with hostility to the Tariff of '42 and the prin

ciples on which that Tariff is based. No such man can ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that this letter was written to Pennsylvania, and written too, most obviously, to remove doubts or unfavorabeen subjected in that State by the posible impressions to which Mr. Polk had tive and industrions assertions of the Whigs that the candidate of their opponents was a Free Trader, and thus hostile to that policy which Pennsylvania had ever sturdily, unflinchingly upheld. The gist of Mr. Kane's cautiously suppressed letter must evidently have been this: "Mr. Polk, our adversaries in this stubbornly tariff State are making capital out of your anti-protective votes write us something calculated to counand speeches in former years. You must teract the impression they are making, or Pennsylvania is lost to you-must be carried for Clay." Thus prompted, Mr. Polk writes the letter above quoted, and "the party" in Pennsylvania are satisfied and strengthened. To all gainsayers and doubters, the letter to Kane is triumphantly exhibited as settling the question. 66 Here he avows himself in favor of fair and equal Protection;-does any body want that which is unfair and unequal? He is for protecting all our great interests alike: would you have one interest pampered at the expense of all the rest? If Yea, vote for Clay, who goes altogether for the spinning-jennies and cloth-factories; but if you want all protected, equally and abundantly, vote for Mr. Polk!" This is no surmise, no far-drawn inference. It is a part of the history of the canvass of '44 that Mr. Buchanan traveled through Pennsylvania, addressing the people and assuring them that the cause of Protection was safe in the hands of Mr. Polk-that Mr. Dallas spoke pointedly though briefly to the same effect, and that the lesser luminaries, McCandless, Hughes, Black, &c., &c., met the Whigs boldly (impudently were perhaps the more appropriate adjective) in public discussions, wherein they maintained, and were held by thousands to have proved, Mr. Polk a more decided and reliable advocate of Protection than Mr. Clay! Men who regard successful knavery as a proper incitement to mirth may smile at this whole matter-may deride, as does the Charleston Mercury, the ignorance and stupidity of Pennsylvania-but must not the thoughtful patriot be driven to mournful auguries for the Future when he re