American System

• Author: Merrill D. Peterson
• Pages: 88

Page 88

"American System" was the name given by HENRY CLAY (in the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, March 30?31, 1824) to the national program of economic policy that centered on the protective tariff for the encouragement of domestic manufactures. It assigned the general government a positive role in promoting balanced economic development within the "home market." Each of the great sections would concentrate on the productions for which it was best suited: the South on staples like cotton, the West on grains and livestock, the Northeast on manufacturing. The tariff would protect the market; INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS would facilitate exchanges and bind the parts together; the national bank would furnish commercial credit and ensure a stable and uniform currency. These measures were implemented in varying degrees, but the system was overtaken by the disintegrating sectionalism of the 1820s and finally buried by Jacksonian Democracy. Constitutionally, the American System posited a broad view of federal powers. It was attacked as dangerously consolidating, indeed unconstitutional in all its leading measures. Although the opposition had other and deeper...