John C. Calhoun on Tariffs

Philip Leigh

formerly Harvey Johnson
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Although a large majority of tariffs were collected in New York on the eve of the Civil War, they were ultimately paid by the consumer who bought the applicable items or, more importantly, the domestic —mostly Northern—alternatives that were insulated from competition by protective tariffs. Decades earlier, however, South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun explained that import tariffs were basically a cost to exporters. The edited remarks below from 1831 by Louis Masur provide Calhoun's reasoning:

Calhoun argued that the tariff favored northern manufacturing interests at the expense of Southern agricultural producers and transferred wealth to the North and away from the South. "We export to import," and tariffs which raised prices on imported [and domestically manufactured alternatives] in order to protect Northern industries, cost Southerners dearly. The effect "is to compel us to purchase at high prices" goods from both domestic and foreign markets "without a corresponding increase in the price for what we sell. We are not permitted to the fruits of our labor but through an artful and complex system in violation of every principle of justice, they are transferred to others."​

If the above was valid in 1860 it was even more applicable to the postbellum South during the next fifty years when the tariff on dutiable items averaged 45% as compared to 19% on the eve of the War with the result depicted below:

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