Wealth & Money Quote by John Griffin Carlisle

“Undemocratic” lands here like an accusation, not a philosophy. Carlisle isn’t politely disputing tariff policy; he’s framing prolonged economic protection as a moral breach of representative government. The key move is temporal: protection might be justified in a crisis or during infancy, but once “the requirements of protection have been met,” continuing the burden stops being prudence and becomes extraction.

The subtext is class warfare in a suit and tie. “Burdens on the people” signals the tariff’s hidden mechanics: consumers pay more, while politically connected producers pocket the difference. Carlisle’s real target isn’t industry as such, but the coalition that keeps a temporary measure permanent - lobbyists, party machines, and legislators who confuse public purpose with private advantage. That’s why his most vivid word is “incrusted.” Wealth isn’t earned cleanly; it hardens, accumulates, and sticks to the beneficiaries like a mineral deposit. It’s an image of money as sedimentary power: layered over time, difficult to scrape off, and ultimately deforming the institution it clings to.

Context matters. Carlisle, a Kentucky Democrat who served as Speaker and later Treasury Secretary, was a prominent voice in late-19th-century fights over high tariffs, when “protection” doubled as a Northern industrial strategy and a patronage engine. His line anticipates a now-familiar critique: policies sold as national defense or economic development can quietly become permanent subsidies for the already secure. The rhetorical punch comes from recasting tariff politics as a test of democracy itself - whether government can end a privilege once it starts paying someone.