The heavy expenses of the Civil War prompted Congress in 1862 and again in 1864 to raise tariff rates to a point higher than they had ever been before. Compared with the Morrill Tariff, the war tariffs increased, among others, rates on pig iron and iron rods fifty per cent, on silks sixty per cent, on raw wool one hundred per cent, and on certain woolen goods one hundred per cent. Soon after the close of the war, the opponents of protection urged on Congress the necessity of making material reductions in the war-tariff rates. Their success was slight, for a majority of the people believed in the merits of protection. Finally in 1887 President Cleveland devoted his entire annual message to the necessity of lowering tariff duties. This was the signal for a congressional battle. The Republican members stood solidly for protection; the Democratic members, for a tariff for revenue only. The debate that followed (in 1888) was a battle of giants. No direct legislation resulted, though it served, as nothing else could have done, to bring the subject of protection into the political foreground.