The Passage of The Tariff
As a protective measure, the tariff legislation was very temperate. It placed a duty of twenty-five percent on cottons and woolens for a period of three years (until June 1819), at which time it would drop to twenty percent. A duty of thirty percent was placed on iron, leather, hats, writing paper and cabinet ware, as well as three cents on a pound of sugar. (Iron duties were further increased in 1818 as a defense measure.)
Low grade printed fabrics from British colonies in India, however cheaply they were priced, were accessed at a fixed rate of twenty-five cents per square yard. This was the only overtly protective feature of the legislation, and served to exclude these foreign textiles altogether from US markets.
The bill - requiring a simple majority for passage – passed 88 yeas to 54 nays in the House (62% to 38%). Both parties were divided, with Republicans voting nationwide 63 yeas to 31 nays, and the Federalists voting 25 yeas to 23 nays.
Read more about this topic: Dallas Tariff
Famous quotes containing the words passage and/or tariff:
“Must we to bed indeed? Well then,
Let us arise and go like men,
And face with an undaunted tread
The long black passage up to bed.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“After so many historical illustrations of the evil effects of abandoning the policy of protection for that of a revenue tariff, we are again confronted by the suggestion that the principle of protection shall be eliminated from our tariff legislation. Have we not had enough of such experiments?”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)