...  It is often said that the tariff is the specialty of Pennsylvania.  Assuming that direct taxation is not to be adopted, the tariff question must be as durable as the government itself.  It is a question of national house-keeping.  It is to the government what replenishing the meal-tub is to the family.  Ever-varying circumstances will require frequent modifications as to the amount needed and the sources of supply.  So far there is little difference of opinion among the people.  It is only whether, and how far, duties on imports shall be adjusted to favour home productions.  In the home market that controversy begins.  One party insists that too much protection oppresses one class for the advantage of another; while the other party argues that, with all its incidents, in the long run all classes are benefited.  In the Chicago platform there is a plank upon this subject, which should be a general law to the incoming Administration.  We should do neither more nor less than we gave the people reason to believe we would when they gave us their votes.  That plank is as I now read: 

“That while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as will encourage the development of the industrial interest of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to working-men liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers adequate reward for their skill, labour, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.”

...  My political education strongly inclines me against a very free use of any of the means by the Executive to control the legislation of the country.  As a rule, I think it better that Congress should originate as well as perfect its measures without external bias.  I therefore would rather recommend to every gentleman who knows he is to be a member of the next Congress, to take an enlarged view, and post himself thoroughly, so as to contribute his part to such an adjustment of the tariff as shall provide a sufficient revenue, and in its other bearings, so far as possible, be just and equal to all sections of the country and classes of the people.

From his Speech at Trenton to the Senate of New Jersey.  February 21, 1861

...  I cannot but remember the place that New Jersey holds in our early history.  In the early Revolutionary struggle few of the States among the old thirteen had more of the battle-fields of the country within their limits than old New Jersey.  May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen,—­“Weems’s Life of Washington.”  I remember all the accounts there given of the battle-fields and struggles for the liberties of the country, and none fixed themselves