With the Whigs solidly in control of the 27th Congress, and a Whig in charge of the executive branch, things looked to be promising of the passage of the Whig platform into law during the special session of Congress that had been called for before Harrison's death and which began on May 31.
Webster's interpretation of the ambiguous constitutional clause concerning secession meant that he remained Vice President and thus President of the Senate as well as Acting President of the United States, but day-to-day procedural matters of the Senate were left to the President pro tempore, John Tyler of Virginia. Despite the Whig majority, because Webster did not always see eye-to-eye with Clay, Webster would need to occasionally cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate as its President.
The special session had reluctantly been called by Harrison because the public fisc was endangered. The Compromise Tariff of 1833 had called for a gradual ratcheting down of the tariff rates, with a large final reduction to take effect January 1, 1842. Hence even without the desire of the Whigs (especially Clay) to raise the tariff for protectionist purposes, something needed to be done. Disagreement within the Whigs was over how high to raise the tariff and how broad based it should be. Webster did not wish to be rushed into such a decision and hence vetoed two efforts to quickly raise the tariff rates. What finally would pass was the Tariff Act of 1841, a stopgap measure that provided that tariff reduction scheduled for January 1, 1842 was canceled. It would not be until the 28th Congress that Webster would propose a new tariff based upon the recommendations compiled by Webster's second Secretary of the Treasury,
Henry Charles Carey. The Carey Tariff, as the Tariff Act of 1844 was generally called, was similar to the Walker Tariff (Tariff Act of 1846) of our own time line, except that the rates were higher as both the generation of revenue and protectionism were its aims. The Warehousing Act of 1844 (1846 in OTL) would also see considerable change in how customs were collected.
Webster would also leave his impact on the legislation reestablishing a government bank. Rather than simply regranting the Second Bank of the United States its former status and privileges, Webster was determined to both blunt Democratic charges of a corrupt handout and to build a bank that would help spread the Whig economic program to every State. The Federal Bank of the United States was therefore a totally new institution. The name Federal Bank was not simply an attempt to avoid calling it the Third Bank. States could choose to form a State Bank with certain requirements that would serve as the official collector of State revenues and be affiliated with the Federal Bank. If a State did so, the Federal Bank would work in that State via the State Bank instead of independently and the State would get to select one director to sit on the board of the Federal Bank, and the Federal Bank would select one of the nine directors of a State Bank.
The Allotment Act of 1841 would allow settlers to establish homesteads on the public lands and pay for them later on the installment plan, provided that they farmed them for a period of eight years. The Act would serve to increase western migration and settlement.
The Rail Road Act of 1842 established certain Federal subsidies for rail roads that met certain standards and provided that land be set aside for the right-of-way needed by rail roads. While not early as generous as the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 in our time line, as the government selected the route and the railroad would only get 1/20th the land that they would get in our time line (320 acres per mile instead of 6400 acres per mile). One effect of the Rail Road Act was that the standard rail gauge of the United States in this time line would be 5 feet instead of the gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches that it is in our time line.
These legislative accomplishments would mean that unlike in our time line, the Whigs would be seen as responsible for the economic prosperity of the United States during this period, and they would retain control of both Houses during the 28th Congress instead of just the Senate. (130 - 97 House; 31 - 21 Senate).
