© Los Angeles Times
Alexander Hamilton

The New York Times is deluded enough to think that the United States has been devoted to free trade for 200 years. In reality, our first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton of New York was a committed protectionist, mercantilist, and dirigist. He oversaw the creation of the First Bank of the United States, the funding of the US public debt, and fought to make the Tariff of 1789 as protectionist as possible. Henry Clay of Kentucky, the leader of the Whig Party, fought to implement the American System of Political Economy with a revived National Bank, a robust program of national infrastructure, and a protective tariff. Clay was the main mentor of Abraham Lincoln, during whose administration protectionist forces in the new Republican Party led by Congressman Justin Morrill of Vermont raised the tariff to an average of 47%. Morrill was advised by the celebrated Republican economist, Henry Carey of Philadelphia.

titre documents joints