[arrogantsob]

Early tariff rates averaged about 15%. It was a revenue tariff only slightly protectionist.

[conimbricenses]

Not so. Antebellum US tariff history is divisible into two periods - 1789-1816 and 1816-1861.

During the first period rates were low and varied only by a few percentage points. Most categories under the 1789 tariff were taxed at 8%, and the modifications of it in the 1790's only tweaked those rates on a handful of goods. When trade resumed after the War of 1812, Congress passed the first overtly protective tariff in 1816 and a succession of hikes over the next two decades. The peak rate topped out at over 60% in 1828, and tariffs did not drop to a stable rate below 20% again until after World War II.

[ought-six]

“Early tariff rates averaged about 15%.”

To go up to 47% under Morrill.