“I was particularly gratified to be favored from yourself wi…
“I was particularly gratified to be favored from yourself with your sentiments on that interesting subject which has engaged so much of the attention of Congress during its present session…. I think there can be no doubt of the impropriety of the interference of government, in the direction of labor and capital … so far as it respects our own country; but I have supposed that it ought to interfere, in behalf of our own people, against the policy and the measures of Foreign governments …. …. The measure of protection which affords short of what many of its friends wished; but considering the sensibilities which have been awakened, and the…diversity of interests which exist in our Country it is perhaps better that we should advance slowly…. I can not however but hope and believe that… we shall see, after a few years, that it will have accomplished much.” — Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives, letter to former President James Madison, 1824 The concerns described in the excerpt best reflect which of the following historical developments?