Dallas Tariff - The Reasons For Southern Support of The Tariff

The Reasons For Southern Support of The Tariff

The tariff of 1816 was the first – and last – protective tariff that received significant Southern support during the “thirty-year tariff war” from 1816 to 1846. A number of historical factors were important in shaping Southern perceptions of the legislation. Acknowledging the need to provide sufficient government funding, and with no adequate alternative propositions, the South felt compelled to consider protection. Southern support of the tariff was not demonstrably linked to any significant trend towards industry in the South, or to the existence of textile mills in the Congressional districts of Southern representatives.

Southern legislators were keenly aware that British merchants were engaging in off-loading manufactured goods on the US market in an effort to cripple emerging American industries. The Southern patriots – War Hawks - had been some of the most strident foes of British aggression and fierce champions of the national government. Among these statesmen were Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky, Henry St. George Tucker, Sr. of Virginia and Alexander C. Hanson of Maryland all supporting the tariff as a war measure.

There were well-founded fears that British economic warfare would lead to a resumption of armed conflict. In that event, a healthy US manufacturing base – including war industries – would be vital to the survival of the American republic. Rejecting doctrinaire anti-Federalism, Representative John C. Calhoun of South Carolina called for national unity through interdependence of trade, agriculture and manufacturing. Recalling how poorly prepared the United States had been for war in 1812, he demanded that American factories be provided protection. John Quincy Adams, as US minister to Great Britain, concurred with Calhoun, discerning a deep hostility from the capitols of Europe towards the fledgling United States.

Old Republicans such as Representative John Randolph of Virginia were marginal figures in this struggle, where strict constructionists were at their nadir. These Tertium quids remained adamant in holding the principals of state soveriegnty and limited government, rejecting any protection whatsoever as an assault upon “poor men and on slaveholders". Among more moderate Southern leaders who remained skeptical about supporting openly protectionist tariff, there were four additional considerations:

First, the tariff was understood to be a temporary expedient to deal with clear and present dangers. The duties would be lowered in three years (June 1819) by which time the strife would likely have subsided.

Secondly, the tariff as proposed in debates would be applied only to cotton and woolen products, and iron; the bulk of imported goods that the South regularly bought from foreign countries were not affected.

Third, economic prosperity prevailed in the agrarian South at the time of the debates, easing concerns about the financial burdens imposed by the tariff. Those who backed this mild tariff were fully aware that most of the financial burden of the tariff, with a concomitant increase in the retail costs would be absorbed by the South. Most of the economic benefits would accrue to the North and the West – in the national interest.

Finally, Republicans, emerging from the War of 1812, with the opposition Federalist Party in disgrace, felt sufficiently in control of the political landscape to permit an experiment in centralizing policies.