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To: arrogantsob
Tariffs affect ALL agriculturalists North and South the same.

That's not necessarily true, either of agriculture as an industry or of region. Since protective tariffs throw all international trade into turmoil by - first - provoking retaliation and - second - altering/manipulating the direction and balance of payments abroad, who the tariff affects the most will depend upon (1) what exports the country produces at the time and (2) what import-competing sectors are being protected. It also isn't even immediately clear in the import-competing sector that the tariff will be a good thing for all participants in that sector due to Stolper-Samuelson effects (in layman's terms, whether and what in a sector gains will depend on if it is a labor intensive or capital intensive production process).

Generally speaking though, at the time of the nullification crisis protective tariffs did disproportionately burden export agriculture through their trade-discouraging effects. The question then becomes what type of agriculture products were being exported: southern crops such as tobacco and cotton or norther crops such as corn and grain? Answer that and you will know who likely had the strongest tariff grievance.

523 posted on 08/11/2010 12:58:31 PM PDT by conimbricenses (Red means run son, numbers add up to nothing.)
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To: conimbricenses

Exports from the South were not going to be the subject of retaliation since England needed the cotton and the mills were not going to allow Parliament to cut their throats. Tariffs on luxuries affected the North as much as the South and were a way to avoid oppressing poor people. Tariffs on machinery affect both sections’ agriculture about the same and even raised costs for manufacturers using it.

Protective tariffs were initially meant (by Hamilton) to be only mildly protective and were not intended to be used to protect mature industries. His concern was to rapidly develop our manufacturing capacity and remove the distortions imposed by the colonial system for the benefit of English industry. It was not as if there was true Free trade in any case.

One should recall that colonial policy was designed to cripple or completely prevent the development of an industrial base in the colonies. So we were born deformed.

It is not an accident that The Wealth of Nations was published the same year as the Declaration.


534 posted on 08/11/2010 1:53:26 PM PDT by arrogantsob
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