Lincoln's Tariff War

When Charles Adams published his book "For Good and Evil", a world history of taxation, the most controversial chapter by far was the one on whether or not tariffs caused the American War between the States. That chapter generated so much discussion and debate that Adams's publisher urged him to turn it into an entire book, which he did, in the form of "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession."

Many of the reviewers of this second book, so confident were they that slavery was the one and only possible reason for both Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency and the war itself, excoriated Adams for his analysis that the tariff issue was a major cause of the war. (Adams recently told me in an email that after one presentation to a New York City audience, he felt lucky that "no one brought a rope.")

My book, "The Real Lincoln", has received much the same response with regard to the tariff issue. But there is overwhelming evidence that: 1) Lincoln, a failed one-term congressman, would never have been elected had it not been for his career-long devotion to protectionism; and 2) the 1861 Morrill tariff, which Lincoln was expected to enforce, was the event that triggered Lincoln’s invasion, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

A very important article that documents in great detail the role of protectionism in Lincoln’s ascendancy to the presidency is Columbia University historian Reinhard H. Luthin's "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff," published in the July 1944 issue of The American Historical Review. As I document in The Real Lincoln, the sixteenth president was one of the most ardent protectionists in American politics during the first half of the nineteenth century and had established a long record of supporting protectionism and protectionist candidates in the Whig Party.

In 1860, Pennsylvania was the acknowledged key to success in the presidential election. It had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Pennsylvania Republicans let it be known that any candidate who wanted the state’s electoral votes must sign on to a high protectionist tariff to benefit the state’s steel and other manufacturing industries. As Luthin writes, the Morrill tariff bill itself "was sponsored by the Republicans in order to attract votes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey."

The most influential newspaper in Illinois at the time was the Chicago Press and Tribune under the editorship of Joseph Medill, who immediately recognized that favorite son Lincoln had just the protectionist credentials that the Pennsylvanians wanted. He editorialized that Lincoln "was an old Clay Whig, is right on the tariff and he is exactly right on all other issues. Is there any man who could suit Pennsylvania better?"

At the same time, a relative of Lincoln’s by marriage, a Dr. Edward Wallace of Pennsylvania, sounded Lincoln out on the tariff by communicating to Lincoln through his brother, William Wallace. On October 11, 1859, Lincoln wrote Dr. Edward Wallace: "My dear Sir: [Y]our brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff view, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject. I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views" (emphasis added). Lincoln was establishing his bona fides as an ardent protectionist.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, the protectionist tariff was a key plank. As Luthin writes, when the protectionist tariff plank was voted in, "The Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations were terrific in their applause over the tariff resolution, and their hilarity was contagious, finally pervading the whole vast auditorium." Lincoln received "the support of almost the entire Pennsylvania delegation" writes Luthin, "partly through the efforts of doctrinaire protectionists such as Morton McMichael . . . publisher of Philadelphia’s bible of protectionism, the North American newspaper."

Returning victorious to his home of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln attended a Republican Party rally that included "an immense wagon" bearing a gigantic sign reading "Protection for Home Industry." Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) economic guru, Pennsylvania steel industry publicist/lobbyist Henry C. Carey, declared that without a high protectionist tariff, "Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be dead before the day of inauguration."

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion--no using force against, or among the people anywhere" (emphasis added).

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion." That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point. Lincoln’s economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").

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BlahBlahBlah. These people (and those who continue to trot them out) sound like syphilitic idiots every time they start with this.

Okay, once again: Tarriffs were lower in the 1850s than they had been in YEARS. They peaked in the 1820s and 1830s especially during the administration Democrat Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.

Then the world market for cotton opened up and suddenly people in the South didn't really like the tarriff any more.

Meanwhile, in our own day, the VERY PEOPLE who now claim the ONLY legal way that the government can take in revenue is through--you guessed it--A TARRIFF.

These people are so brain-damaged they've lost count of the number of sides of their mouths they talk out of.

The South seceded to protect slavery, get it? That's it. No tarriffs caused the Southern states to secede. Only the perceived threat to slavery.

Why did they call Lincoln's party the "Black Republicans," doofuses? Because of the color of his hat?

Sheesh.

I wonder if there are records of the topics of discussion at the 1860 Republican convention. I bet at least 10 times as much energy was spent discussing slavery as the tariff.

For Pete's sake, the ONLY thing that the entire Republican Party, formed only four years before out of wildly disparate groups, had in common was their opposition to the extension of slavery. Hence the author's unintentional admission that the issue was of great importance to only the PA and NJ delegations.

They [tariffs] peaked in the 1820s and 1830s especially during the administration Democrat Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.

Do you recall that South Carolina threatened to secede in the late 1830s because of high tariffs? Gunboats were sent to the coast, troops were mobilized, South Carolina authorized the purchase of arms to fight a northern invasion, and only when the north sought compromise on the issue did South Carolina back down. We almost fought a Civil War in the late 1830s and it had nothing -- zip, zero, nada -- to do with slavery.

So now you know why tariffs had peaked in the 1820s and 1830s and were lower by the time of the Civil War, when they were raised again. Did you even read the article to note that the Morrell bill tripled the tariff, and that they were soon to be raised even more?

Yes, slavery was an issue, but it was by no means the only issue. Remember (assuming you ever knew) that 4 of the 13 Union states -- plus the chunk of Virginia that later became West Virginia -- were slaveholding states. Remember also that slavery was allowed to continue in the north and the occupied portions of the southern states until almost a year after the war ended.

Look up what I said in any good history book or check it out on the web. You should review your history before making such an embarassing post. Don't bother to respond until you've done your homework.

Due to the recession in the North of 1857-58, and the excessive infrastructure spending by Congress, the Federal Debt had swelled to unprecedented levels. And with 98% of the US Treasury dependent on tariff revenue, and that being fed by Southern produced goods (gone as of Feb., 1861) to the tune of at the very least 65% of the total revenue, on March 4, 1861 the Federal government was broke. The Southern states seceded for a variety of reasons, but Lincoln, hounded by bankers and businessmen, brought the fight South to protect the US Treasury.

And with 98% of the US Treasury dependent on tariff revenue, and that being fed by Southern produced goods (gone as of Feb., 1861) to the tune of at the very least 65% of the total revenue, on March 4, 1861 the Federal government was broke.

There were never any tariffs on Southern-produced goods. Tariffs are on imports, not exports.

Had secession succeeded, the US would have had a balance of payments problem, since cotton formed the majority of exports, but it is very doubtful the seceded states (with 1/4 of the population) consumed even a majority of the imported goods which had tariffs on them.

n 1860, Pennsylvania was the acknowledged key to success in the presidential election. It had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Pennsylvania Republicans let it be known that any candidate who wanted the state’s electoral votes must sign on to a high protectionist tariff to benefit the state’s steel and other manufacturing industries.

Horsefeathers.

Henry Bessemer invented his steel-making process in England in 1856. Andrew Carnegie didn't witness it until 1872 and fired up the Edgar Thompson works in Pittsburgh in 1875. (The nation's first steel mill.)

Just goes to show that the "free trade" apologists for slavery can't get their facts straight.

This was already posted here when it first came out (Lying about Lincoln), though I wouldn't have put it past Di Lorenzo to publish the exact same article a week later. As an economist, he must have calculated the marginal increment to his income from book sales every time he publishes one of these screeds.

The 1860 election, like political debate since at least 1854, had been dominated by the issue of the expansion and preservation of slavery. Di Lorenzo has picked letters containing the few or the only references to the tariff in Lincoln's writings and utterances of the campaign and used his obsessions to build a case that everything was all about the tariff.

Lincoln did not need the tariff to get elected. If he could carry Indiana, he was likely to carry Pennsylvania, particularly with Pennsylvania favorite son Buchanan out of the race. Who else would iron-makers and other Pennsylvanians vote for anyway?

Henry C. Carey was more than a lobbyist or propagandist. He was a respected economist of his day. Pro-tariff theorists and businessmen seeking tariffs would naturally flex their muscles and make a display of how essential they were to Lincoln's victory. This sort of behavior is known to us even today. But such claims should not be taken at face value.

There is something bizarre about Di Lorenzo's argument. On the one hand we are told that Lincoln was a high tariff man going back for years. On the other hand we're told the tariff was something promoted to win the election. Di Lorenzo should realize that he can't have things both ways: either the tariff was a long-standing part of Lincoln's world view, as it was of American politics, or else it was adopted on cynical and purely political grounds.

On the one hand we are told that the South was justified in going to war to promote its cotton-growing (and slaveholding?) interests. On the other it's said that iron masters were wrong to vote for their own interests and politicians were wrong to appeal to the interests of American manufacturers.

"There were never any tariffs on Southern-produced goods. Tariffs are on imports, not exports."

You miss the point. In 1860, 65% of the value of US exports was in cotton and tobacco. Whether or not Southern states exported and imported, paying tariffs, or Northern traders and brokers bought, shipped and re-imported, thus paying tariffs, is not the issue. The point is that in 1860, 65% of the US Treasury revenue came from tariffs on imported goods paid for in Europe with Southern grown goods. With cotton and tobacco no longer going through US Customs houses, the government was almost immediately bankrupt.

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