Tariff Wars and the Politics of Jacksonian America

William K. Bolt

Description

Before the Civil War, the American people did not have to worry about a federal tax collector coming to their door. The reason why was the tariff, taxing foreign goods and imports on arrival in the United States. Tariff Wars and the Politics of Jacksonian America attempts to show why the tariff was an important part of the national narrative in the antebellum period. The debates in Congress over the tariff were acrimonious, with pitched arguments between politicians, interest groups, newspapers, and a broader electorate.

The spreading of democracy caused by the tariff evoked bitter sectional controversy among Americans. Northerners claimed they needed a tariff to protect their industries and also their wages. Southerners alleged the tariff forced them to buy goods at increased prices. Having lost the argument against the tariff on its merits, in the 1820s, southerners began to argue the Constitution did not allow Congress to enact a protective tariff. In this fight, we see increased tensions between northerners and southerners in the decades before the Civil War began.

As Tariff Wars reveals, this struggle spawned a controversy that placed the nation on a path that would lead to the early morning hours of Charleston Harbor in April of 1861.

Sujets

• 19th Century
• Histoire
• History of the United States
• Politics
• Economics
• United States
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 15 août 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826521385
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Tariff Wars and the Politics of Jacksonian America
New Perspectives on Jacksonian History
Mark Cheathem, Cumberland University, and Beth Salerno, Saint Anselm College, series editors
This series examines the period from 1812 to 1861, spanning the decades when Andrew Jackson was a significant figure both in life and in memory. The chronological definition of the series recognizes the importance of the War of 1812 in elevating Jackson to national recognition and his continued importance, even after his death in 1845, to United States politics and society in the years leading up to the Civil War. But while Jackson gives one name to this period, alternative titles of early republic, antebellum, and age of association make clear how political, economic, sectional, and organizational movements intersected to shape this critical era. The editors are particularly interested in books that address the democratization of the United States, broadly defined, and the many groups that jockeyed for power and influence in that process.
Editorial Advisory Board
John Belohlavek, University of South Florida
Andrew K. Frank, Florida State University
Lorri Glover, Saint Louis University
Ronald A. Johnson, Texas State University
Stephen A. Mihm, University of Georgia
Kirsten E. Wood, Florida International University
Tariff Wars and the Politics of Jacksonian America
William K. Bolt
Vanderbilt University Press
NASHVILLE
© 2017 by Vanderbilt University Press
Nashville, Tennessee 37235
All rights reserved
First printing 2017
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
LC control number 2016015316
LC classification number E381 .B68 2016
Dewey class number 320.973/09034—dc23
LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/2016015316
ISBN 978-0-8265-2136-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-8265-2137-8 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-8265-2138-5 (ebook)
To William F. Bolt
and
Martin C. Miller
Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LIST OF TABLES
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. “The new system which out Hamiltons Alexander Hamilton”
2. “Whatever the people will, at any particular moment, must be done”
3. “A step between the throne and the scaffold”
4. Judicious and Injudicious Tariffs
5. Scratching an Itch
6. The Harrisburg Convention
7. “Wolves in sheep’s clothing”
8. “The people are generally greatly excited on the subject of the Tariff”
9. “Every American must give up a little for his country”
10. “Repeal the Tariff or Repeal the Union”
11. “Our country is at an awful and momentous crisis”
12. The Winter of Discontent
13. “Democracy seeks the benefit of all at the expense of none”
14. “Congress should be made to see & hear that the People are in earnest”
15. “If you elect us, boys, the Tariff of 1842 is safe”
16. “Mr. Polk’s political death warrant is sealed”
17. “Even the tariff is not a question on which opposite political parties are united in taking opposite sides”
18. “Free trade and slavery are twin measures”
ILLUSTRATION GALLERIES
THE AUTHORS
THE ACTORS
ABBREVIATIONS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Illustrations
THE AUTHORS
William Lowndes
John Tod
Silas Wright
John Quincy Adams
Gulian C. Verplanck
Henry Clay
Millard Fillmore
James I. McKay
Robert M. T. Hunter
Justin S. Morrill
THE ACTORS
James K. Polk
Martin Van Buren
Daniel Webster
Andrew Jackson
James Buchanan
John Tyler
Matty’s Perilous Situation Up Salt River
George McDuffie
John C. Calhoun
Tables
1. Effects of the tariff on the American economy
1.1. House vote, 1816
2.1. House vote, 1820
2.2. Senate vote to postpone, 1820
3.1. House vote, 1824
3.2. Senate vote, 1824
5.1. House vote, woolens bill of 1827
5.2. Senate vote to postpone woolens bill of 1827
7.1. House vote, 1828
7.2. Senate vote, 1828
10.1. House vote, 1832
10.2. Senate vote, 1832
12.1. House vote, 1833
12.2. Senate vote, 1833
14.1. House vote on the “Little” or “Provisional” tariff, 1842
14.2. Senate vote on the “Little” or “Provisional” tariff, 1842
14.3. House vote on the “Great” or “Permanent” tariff, 1842
14.4. Senate vote on the “Great” or “Permanent” tariff, 1842
14.5. House vote on the final tariff with distribution, 1842
14.6. Senate vote on the final tariff with distribution, 1842
15.1. House vote to postpone the tariff, 1844
16.1. House vote, 1846
16.2. Senate vote, 1846
17.1. House vote, 1857
18.1. House vote, 1860
18.2. Senate vote to postpone, 1860
18.3. Senate vote, 1861
Preface
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN today probably thinks very little about tariffs. During the Jacksonian period, however, the tariff served as a divisive political issue in the decades prior to the Civil War. Generally speaking, those Americans living in the more heavily populated and developed northeastern and mid-Atlantic states supported a high tariff that allowed a national domestic marketplace to develop, while those residing in the more geographically dispersed southern and western states favored a low tariff because they often found it more feasible to import goods from overseas than to ship them in from their neighbors to the north.
Political debates over the tax on imports did not just center on its economic consequences, however. Those were significant, of course, as the tariff, along with federal land sales, was one of the two main revenue streams for the United States government. What Bolt demonstrates is that economics, while important, was not at the heart of southern whites’ fear of the tariff. Their concern was the government’s power to enforce the tariff and to use the revenue generated as it saw fit. Would the government use tariff revenue to force industrialization and modernization? Would it find a way to take tariff revenue and put it toward the emancipation and colonization of enslaved African Americans? These questions were important ones to southern white enslavers, whose economic, political, and social culture depended upon cash crops and enslaved labor.
Beyond this critical argument is another one: the tariff symbolized what it meant to be an American. A low tariff could produce a reliance on imported goods, which hindered the full flourishing of an American national identity. Those who desired a low tariff were often seen as clinging to a European past and culture that flew in the face of the United States’ very independence. On the other hand, a high tariff represented a commitment to a domestic marketplace of production and consumption. The trade-off, however, was that a burgeoning domestic marketplace required industrialization and urbanization. Both of these developments possessed perceived drawbacks: crime, disease, homelessness, and, perhaps most importantly, a lack of economic, personal, and political independence. In sum, at the heart of the tariff debate was the tension that existed between the Hamiltonian vision of a modern, industrial United States capable of competing in the global economy and the Jeffersonian vision of a yeoman republic comprised of independent farmers.
The Jacksonian-era tariff continues to hold an important place in twenty-first-century debates. Internet forums are replete with arguments that the Civil War was fought over the perceived inequality of national tariff policy that punished white southerners for pursuing cash-crop agriculture on the backs of enslaved people. At the heart of that argument, even if its proponents fail to acknowledge it, is the reality that their concern is not historical but political: what can the federal government tell Americans to do with their property and income? In the Jacksonian period, the issue was enslaved African Americans who were held as economic investments; today, the issues range from guns to income taxes. Understanding the Jacksonian-era tariff, therefore, helps us better comprehend concerns about federal power and opposition to it, both then and now.
Mark Cheathem
Cumberland University
Acknowledgments
SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE ASSISTED, encouraged, and supported me in the years that it has taken to complete this work. I am honored to acknowledge their efforts.
Richard Ellis, at the University at Buffalo, first introduced me to the politics of the age of Jackson. His encyclopedic mind always had an answer to whatever question I would pose. I have incorporated his anecdotes and stories into several of my own courses. I am grateful that he took an interest in a young and inexperienced historian and that he shared his knowledge of antebellum politics. When I first began examining the tariff, he provided numerous ideas to explore and investigate. I regret that he did not live to see this work completed.
Dan Feller graciously read and suggested avenues for pursuit for every chapter. His gentle critiques and sharp analysis have improved this work. Dan and his staff at the Papers of Andrew Jackson, Tom Coens and Laura Eve Moss, also provided me with Jackson documents whenever the n