July Fourth Remembered For American Independence, and the Means to Maintain It
It was on July 4, 1776 that our nation officially declared its independence from the British Crown. But some forget that it was on July 4, 1789 that President George Washington signed the first act of the first Congress of the United States; the Tariff Act of 1789. It was the Declaration of Independence and the war that followed that established political independence for the newly formed United States. It was the Tariff Act of 1789 that was called the “second Declaration of Independence” because it is the tariff that makes economic independence possible, and it is economic independence that makes political independence viable.
The United States was a nation founded on protectionism. It is the national free market economy, together with the protective tariff to maintain independence, protect the fragile wage and price structure of the nation, and to raise revenue for government, that made the United States the most prosperous, most free, and most economically powerful nation in the history of the world. This system was designed by the genius of Alexander Hamilton and remained largely in place until quite recently. It is only by altering the national free market economic system, which includes a protective tariff, that a nation can lose its independence, fall victim to the economic warfare of dumped manufactured products, currency manipulation, and other forms of unfair trade. It is this self imposed exposure to the economic warfare of foreign powers that has resulted in the loss of millions of American jobs, the increase in the numbers of Americans that must work to support their families, the dramatic decrease in the share of GDP that is paid as wages to American workers (real wages), and the dramatic increase in the need for high income taxes to create safety nets for the unemployed and underemployed. It is the general philosophy of free trade globalism that has led to the relatively unprotected borders where thousands of illegal aliens enter our nation daily, which has resulted in a crisis of 12 to 20 million illegal aliens living in our country. And it is the general philosophy of free trade globalism that leads to military interventionism, global governmental organizations, and what President Washington warned us against: foreign entanglements.
So today we remember not only our first Declaration of Independence, but also the second, born of the philosophy of protectionism; the philosophy of Americanism.