The predictions which were made that the tariff act of 1846 would reduce
the amount of revenue below that collected under the act of 1842, and
would prostrate the business and destroy the prosperity of the country,
have not been verified. With an increased and increasing revenue, the
finances are in a highly flourishing condition. Agriculture, commerce,
and navigation are prosperous; the prices of manufactured fabrics and of
other products are much less injuriously affected than was to have been
anticipated from the unprecedented revulsions which during the last and
the present year have overwhelmed the industry and paralyzed the credit
and commerce of so many great and enlightened nations of Europe.
Severe commercial revulsions abroad have always heretofore operated to
depress and often to affect disastrously almost every branch of American
industry. The temporary depression of a portion of our manufacturing
interests is the effect of foreign causes, and is far less severe than
has prevailed on all former similar occasions.
It is believed that, looking to the great aggregate of all our
interests, the whole country was never more prosperous than at the
present period, and never more rapidly advancing in wealth and
population.
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