"Editorial: The Tariff and Secession – 5-6" Again the Times editors address the question of the new Morrill Tariff versus the Confederates' lower tariffs.
The editors remind us the Times opposed the higher Morrill Tariff and imply: so did President Lincoln, though that could certainly be debated.
Regardless, the Times now urges the higher tariff be lowered so that foreign countries are not tempted to ship their products through Confederate ports.
The Times is, of course, right to be concerned, but let's remember some basic facts:
- Confederates never had, or planned to have, "free trade" meaning no tariffs whatsoever.
- The original Confederate tariffs were simply the old Union Tariff of 1857, with some small changes.
This tariff allowed some raw materials to be imported duty-free, others taxed at modest rates and still others -- i.e., luxury items -- taxed at much higher rates. - The new Morrill Tariff also had some materials duty-free, some with modest taxes and still others at quite high rates.
- Each tariff listed hundreds of items, each item with its own higher or lower rate and what, exactly, was to be the rate for any given shipment might even be debated at the time, depending on its exact configuration.
Items arriving in one form had a set rate, but in a slightly different form, a different rate. - Point is: it was not a simple matter of 10% vs 20% tariffs -- each item had its own rate and shippers would need to study carefully which cargoes to land where.
But being a more cosmopolitan paper from globalist New York City, the Times cared nothing about the one thing which did motivate the vast majority of Republicans -- putting American manufacturing first, to make America both great and independent of foreign manufactures.
So, should push come to shove and Civil War break out, the Union's manufacturing self-sufficiency -- helped by the Morrill Tariff -- will give it a decided advantage over Confederates' more agricultural economy.