Northerners paid exactly the same tariffs as southerners, and there were few if any products that southerners wanted to buy that weren’t also popular among northerners. Also, tariffs in 1860 were the lowest they’d been in 30 years. 15%, if I remember correctly.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we only paid taxes to the federal government when we purchased imported goods, and at that rate? What horrible oppression!
You need to get you neo-confederate story straight. The claim is that northerners oppressed southerners because protective tariffs were placed on some goods to protect manufacturers from “unfair competition” from foreigners.
Since a larger percentage of northerners than southerners benefited from these protective tariffs, southerners claimed oppression. Supposedly enough to justify secession and risk of war. (This claim, to may knowledge, was made only after losing the war, when defense of slavery was no longer a respectable reason for secession, even in the South.)
To view this as horrible oppression by one section of the other requires ignoring a large number of inconvenient facts. I bring up those only on the top of my mind.
Most northerners, like most southerners, were farmers or anyway in the rural economy. A smaller percentage to be sure, but still a considerable majority.
Protective tariffs were originally proposed because the USA had serious problems during the War of 1812 when they discovered the drawbacks of being dependent on foreign sources for essential military equipment, especially when you foe was that main supplier. The original idea was to build up an armaments industry for national defense reasons. Of course it got twisted into semi-corruption, but that was the original idea.
The main proponent of protective tariffs for most of the 1800s was Henry Clay, a southerner and large slaveowner.
If the South had won it independence, I’m sure they would have put in some kind of protective tariff, despite it being prohibited in their Constitution. Or perhaps you believe they would have been eternally willing to submit to the risks of a blockade shutting off essentiual military supplies?
The total federal budget for 1860 was $60,000,000. Are you seriously contending that such a sum, spread out among $30M+ people, constituted excessive taxation justifying secession and probable war? Really? That was less than $2 per capita. I realize a dollar was worth a lot more than, but it wasn’t worth THAT much more.
White southerners were so far from being economically oppressed by northerners that they were significantly more prosperous on average than northerners were. The ratio 2:1 sticks in my mind, but that could well be off.
You got some things sorta right and others just outright wrong.
An article by John Kuhn at the Charleston Mercury gives a much clearer and more accurate analysis of the events you speak of.
How did the Tariff of Abominations so severely divide the country? By 1828, the North had become more and more industrialized. In other words, it largely left its agricultural roots and became a great producer of products and goods. On the other hand, the South maintained its agrarian roots, growing much of the nation’s food as well as exporting a tremendous amount of agricultural products to Europe. As the North grew in factories and production, more people moved to the North. Meanwhile, the voting base in the South did not grow. When the North picked up increasingly more votes in Congress due to the population growth, it was in a position to assert its will. Unfortunately, it started to wield its power unjustly. The greatest manifestation of this was the Tariff of 1828.
Many European goods were still much less expensive than the same goods from the North. In 1828, Congress (against the will of the Southern minority) imposed a tax on many European goods so that those goods would now be more expensive and U.S. citizens would then have to purchase the more expensive goods from the North. This meant Europe sold much less of their products to the U.S. and had much less money to purchase agricultural products from the South. Worse yet, Southerners also had to pay more for the goods they needed to farm and to live, so their cost of agricultural production went up.
This artificially drove up the cost of Southern agricultural products. Because Europe was the number one market for Southern agricultural goods, the South suddenly lost its market for its products. Therefore, the new tariffs made the North artificially wealthy and financially damaged the South — NOT EXACTLY EQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE U.S. CONSTITUTION (emphasis added. No nationalist would remain a nationalist if he were on the losing end of this equation.
JCalhoun’s reaction to the Tariff of Abominations was immediate. He became an Anti-Federalist and wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest. In this protest, Calhoun stated that if the Tariff of 1828 was not repealed, SC would secede. He also introduced his Doctrine of Nullification, the basis of which came from the states’ rights arguments of famous Anti-Federalists James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Calhoun argued that the several states were not bound to stay under the Federal government if their rights were trampled under the U.S. Constitution. In other words, a state always had the right to nullify any act of Congress that violated the U.S. Constitution, and if Congress did not thereafter repeal said act, then the state had the right to secede.
Rather than abolish the unjust tariffs, Congress proceeded to slightly mitigate the tariffs with new tariffs in 1832. At that point, the South Carolina Legislature acted upon Calhoun’s protest and passed the Ordinance of Nullification, stating that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were null and void within the state of SC. Unbelievably, Congress also passed the Force Bill, which authorized the president to organize troops against SC if she did not enforce the tariffs. The War of Northern Aggression was only averted at that point by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, who offered a new compromise that would lessen the tariffs on SC.
However, the inherent problem remained that Congress had no problem continuing to pass legislation that benefited the Northern states at the expense of the Southern states simply because they had the votes and the power to do so. This smoldering inequality eventually led to the state of SC acting on December 20, 1860, to secede from the Union. Shortly thereafter, ten more Southern states seceded and created a new country, the Confederate States of America. This would not have happened if Congress did not abuse its power by treating its states and citizens unequally.
Because of all of this, John C. Calhoun is widely recognized as the Father of Secession. He established that the Southern states should not be subjected to continued unequal treatment under the U.S. Constitution. When unequal treatment continued unabated, on December 20, 1860, SC became the first state to secede from an oppressive Union. Therefore, may the 150th anniversary of this date be recognized as one of the fundamental milestones on the arduous path to true equality in the U.S.
Pretty much blows the “equal tariffs” nonsense out of the water. While individuals may have paid the tariff equally on the goods they purchased, the IMPACT of the tariffs upon the respective economies was profoundly unfair and unequal.
Now, let’s fast forward to today while remembering “Unbelievably, Congress also passed the Force Bill, which authorized the president to organize troops against SC if she did not enforce the tariffs.” If this concept does not seem to be disturbingly similar to the power grab Obama is engaged in today then you aren’t paying attention. Those who defend Lincoln’s tyrannical actions are, by extension, tacitly supporting Obama’s dream of becoming dictator.
Whine all you want, but THAT is the simply truth. And it is why we Southerners continue to “fight.” It has nothing to do with the WBTS and everything to do with federalism vs. state’s rights. Lincoln gave us Wilson who gave us FDR who gave us Obama. Southerners got it then and get it today. Lincoln apologists are still stone cold stupid, in denial, or liberal minions to Obama.
Does that not seem wrong in some way in your thinking?
The issue was the loss of value of the products being produced in the South due to the increased percentage cost of the tariff that deflated overseas demand and produced drastic inflation in the US market pricing.
Between 1816 and 1830 there had been four major successive tariff hikes (1816, 1819, 1824, 1828) plus several dozen minor ones. Only at the threat of secession did tariff advocates even attempt compromise in 1832-33, and then in ways that still retained heavily protectionist elements.
As a result America operated under a policy of constant heavy protectionism for over 30 years after the conclusion of the War of 1812.
The Walker Tariff in 1846 was the first and only tariff schedule even remotely favorable to free trade.
But that was to change drasticlly. The 1860-61 Morrill Tariff was about to double and triple the tariff rates.
You said: "Also, tariffs in 1860 were the lowest they’d been in 30 years. 15%, if I remember correctly.”
You are providing a very misleading conclusion by saying that since in May of 1860 and strictly on a sectional vote, the US House of Representatives passed their version of the Morrill Tariff. Congress' passage of the Morrill Tariff and the Senate doing the same in 1861 essentially meant tripling the rates in one broad sweep.