An additional and still stranger feature of the debate is found when Mr.Calhoun, co-operating with Mr.Clay, replied to Mr.Webster's free-trade speech in an elaborate defense of the doctrine of protection to our manufactures.
Mr.Calhoun spoke with enthusiasm, and gave an interesting _resume_ of the condition of the country as affected by the war with Great Britain.

He believed that the vital deficiency in our financial condition was the lack of manufactures, and to supply that deficiency he was willing to extend the protecting arm of the government.
"When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon will be under the fostering care of the government, we shall no longer experience these evils.

The farmer will find a ready market for his surplus products, and, what is almost of equal consequence, a certain and cheap supply for all his wants.

His prosperity will diffuse itself through every class in the community." Not satisfied with this unqualified support of the protective system, Mr.Calhoun supplemented it by declaring that "to give perfection to this state of things, it will be necessary to add as soon as possible a system of internal improvements." Mr.Webster's opposition to protection was based on the fact that it tended to depress commerce and curtail the profits of the carrying-trade.
The tariff of 1816 was termed "moderately protective," but even in that form it encountered the opposition of the commercial interest.
It was followed in the country by severe depression in all departments of trade, not because the duties were not in themselves sufficiently high, but from the fact that it followed the war tariff, and the change was so great as to produce not only a re-action but a revolution in the financial condition of the country.

All forces of industry languished.