The war makes it hard to judge that, but the authors of the journal article take a look at it in the form of the first two confederate tariff schedules. The first was the low rate pre-Morrill US schedule, and the second was a confederate modification. Both suggest themselves to be revenue tariffs.
While there's much to be said for free trade, I don't think an abstract mathematical answer can answer the question in all cases.
It cannot answer the professed reasons for any given tariff nor does it purport to, but for what that tariff will do and what the alternative is, the answer is pretty cut and dried.
Specifically, in 19th Century America there was the concern about escaping a colonial situation in which America provided raw goods to Britain and imported British finished products.
Yes. You've said that repeatedly. It is still no justification for tariffs though as the belief that tariffs are the way out of such a situation is debunked economic nonsense. Comparative advantage and free trade are the way to go because it lets the market decide, not some preset artificially imposed expectation.
In time, it's likely that free trade might have made it possible to overcome the colonial situtation.
It's certainly more likely a possibility than attempting to force it into a predecided system by tariffs and regulation.
But it wasn't clear that 19th century Americans would have that time, or that free trade was the wave of the future.
And that is the heart of the problem. Southerners had long argued that free trade was the way to go. The protectionists, who earned their livlihood on the artificial constructs of a government policy designed to benefit them to the cost of everyone else, thought otherwise. Even if one could, blaming people for not following as yet unproven theories that they didn't know and couldn't understand looks like a low way of proceeding, particularly if one excuses far worse moral failings.
David Ricardo understood it back in 1820 and provided theoretical proofs of his theory back in 1820. Why couldn't they have understood it in 1861? America had taken the free trade course from the late 1840's to 1860 with economic success. Why couldn't they have seen how it works in 1861? You are severely underestimating the intellectual abilities of the people at that time by suggesting some sort of ignorance of a taxation system that was arguably better known to them than it is to the overwhelming majority of us today. As for your moral objections over slavery compared to taxation, relativist comparisons will get you nowhere. Exploiting the American political system to build a petty industrial empire for onesself by raping the entirity of the rest of the nation of its core livlihood through means of government policy is no better than the wretched sin of slavery itself.
You have also said that repeatedly. Rightly or wrongly, many 19th century Americans did not want to be relegated to the position of Spain or Jamaica, Australia or Argentina: that of a provider of raw goods for British industry.
Exploiting the American political system to build a petty industrial empire for onesself by raping the entirity of the rest of the nation of its core livlihood through means of government policy is no better than the wretched sin of slavery itself.
Well, that says it all. Agree with it or not, I don't think Hamilton's or Lincoln's tariff policy can be compared to slavery. For one thing, political policies can always be changed when those who are adversely effected vote against them. That wasn't the case for the condition of the slaves, who had not vote. For another thing, free men and women can move to more economically advantageous regions or trades. Slaves could not.
Moreover, it's not clear that tariffs were as destructive as you claim. Even without tariffs, the development of technology and the opening of new lands made agriculture increasingly less profitable and industrial development advisible. There is always some discomfort and conflict when agriculture becomes unprofitable or ceases to provide people's needs and wants.
It's curious that arguments that minimize the role of slavery aren't "relativist" and those that put the controversy over tariffs into perspective are.
When I say that many people were, "rightly or wrongly," understandably protectionists, I'm not slighting morality. I mean correctly or incorrectly according to the current state of economics.
Many people of the time, even if they had read or heard of Ricardo, would probably find Henry C. Carey more persuasive. Correctly or incorrectly, Ricardo and Malthus with their "iron laws" repelled as many people as they attracted.