Not quite, unless you want to consider Thomas Jefferson a traitor.
The exercise of a free trade with all parts of the world [is] possessed by [a people] as of natural right, and [only through a] law of their own [can it be] taken away or abridged.
--Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.
Jefferson believed tariffs should only be applied in retaliation and never as as a general policy. A greater president yet, Ronald Reagan, believed that tariffs only hurt the country that applied them. Neither were "traitors".
Alexander Hamilton only favored tariffs for what he called “infant industries”. As he wrote in his "Report on Manufactures" (1791):
The superiority antecedently enjoyed by nations who have preoccupied and perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a more formidable obstacle . . . to the introduction of the same branch into a country in which it did not before exist. To maintain, between the recent establishments of one country, and the long-matured establishments of another country, a competition upon equal terms, both as to quality and price, is, in most cases, impracticable. The disparity . . . must necessarily be so considerable, as to forbid a successful rival ship, without the extraordinary aid and protection of government.
The United States has existed WAY too long for the “infant” excuse to hold. As President Reagan said, the thing about infant industries is that they never seem to grow up.
National tariffs would make for poor incentives. The Flat Tax is a much better idea.
No, I don't consider Thomas Jefferson a traitor, but he was a globalist. By the way, what was the average income tax rate during Jefferson's lifetime? Hamilton's lifetime?
The exercise of a free trade with all parts of the world [is] possessed by [a people] as of natural right, and [only through a] law of their own [can it be] taken away or abridged.
--Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.
Yes, tariffs may or may not be imposed by "the people." Thanks for the quote supporting my assertion.