Excise taxes funded a large amount of the entire federal budget (up to 95%) until the 1910s. Tariffs had almost no impact on the federal budget (only 8 - 15% total federal income) during the 1930s:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history
Tariffs allowed businesses and individuals to not have income tax for 120+ years.
All taxes are penalties. Is it better to tax income, sales, property, or imports to least disincentivize our economy? This is not a hard question to answer.
It is best, not better, for the citizens to have the very smallest government feasible, if citizens value their freedom and property. The wise Madison; who had the temperament of the Athenian Greeks; told us so.
Since the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913, which permitted the substitution of Income Taxes for Tariffs; has government become smaller???
Arguing that Tariffs are better for a nation than Income Taxes is selfish nonsense, as both distort the cost of the factors of production, severely harming the flow of trade and more critically, the ideas that come along w/them.
A linchpin of personal freedom is economic freedom.