Northern financial interests and their legislators feared losing the commercial advantages they held to Southern states along the Mississippi.
In 1786, John Jay of New York had caused uproar in Congress among the Southern delegates with his attempt to give up rights to the Mississippi River to Spain in exchange for commercial advantages in Spanish ports for the Northern trading ports. Their great fear at the time was that their commerce would shift to the South. They exerted influence then to defeat Southern ports and trade on the Mississippi, and they continued for decades.
Many weeks before Lincoln’s inauguration, the New York Times had been running editorials of how the commerce of the North would be lost to New Orleans and to the rest of the South because of the low Southern tariff. Some Northerners admitted that their reasons for calling for war were not the result of differences in principles of constitutional law, but because their profits would be lost if the South was successful in becoming independent.
In his inauguration speech, Lincoln had said:
“The power confided in me, 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 of force against, or among the people anywhere.... You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.”
This was Lincoln’s ultimatum to the South: pay tribute to the North or failure to do so will be interpreted as a declaration of war, by the South, against the North.
3/30/1861 New York Times editorial:
“The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over…If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at a less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage….
“If the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel.
“The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior?
“They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers.”
“Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North…. We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt.
“With us, it is no longer an abstract question - one of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence ... We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched.”
Four days later, at the suggestion that he should not send troops to Ft. Sumter, Lincoln said this:
“Well, what about the revenue? What would I do about the collection of duties? “If I do that, I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!” (Housekeeping was a euphemism for federal spending.)
Wouldn't the tariff be applied once the goods were landed in the United States?