The changes in the United States’ circumstances that resulted from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars were a prominent topic in Clay’s speech. As he noted, those events led to a near-complete halt in imports for the nation, making local manufacturers work hard to compensate for the lack. As a result, the local economy grew, and once the wars ended, the U.S.’s relationship with Europe was no longer the same as before the unrest. As such, Clay posited that it would not be possible to return to the old policies and enrich the nation in that manner.
However, the speaker also noted that the new mode of operations improved the nation’s prosperity significantly. According to Clay, the U.S. economy was growing steadily in many different aspects, and the public treasury was overflowing to the point of not having topics left to address. As such, he called for a further increase in American economic and production independence without the use of embargoes. Protectionist policies would make it challenging for foreign goods to compete with local ones, stimulating the growth of the economy but leaving the option of using imports to those who wanted them.