As I recall, there was perpetual yelling and screaming about the tariffs. Some wanted lower. Some wanted higher. It got jerked around left and right depending on which party had control of the Congress.
Actually, if you look at tariff policy during the 1800’s, particularly before the Civil War, the disagreement was between North and South. The North wanted high tariffs to protect its developing manufacturing industries. The South wanted low tariffs to facilitate its international trade in agricultural commodities (cotton, tobacco, naval stores) as well as have the option to purchase foreign manufactured goods instead of tariff protected high cost manufactured goods from the North. In essence, the North used high tariffs, as well as control of the banking system (which controlled the allocation of capital), to maintain economic hegemony over the South.
Today’s politically correct historians will not agree but economic factors may have been more important than slavery in causing the Civil War. Southerner’s hated the high tariffs and the control New York banks and the Boston merchants exercised over access to capital and control of shipping.
The North today benefits from low tariffs as it has shed most of its labor intensive manufacturing. The low tariff policies of the past 20 years have served to destroy low wage unskilled non union assembly manufacturing in the South (textiles, apparel, furniture, consumer goods) while enriching Wall Street which has exported capital instead of investing in the USA. For most of US history Wall Street (i.e the banking cartel of the North) has ultimately prevailed in dictating tariff and economic policy for the nation. The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, along with the adoption of the 16th Amendement establishing the federal income tax in the same year, assured the New York banking cartel essentially institutionalize Wall Street control over the banking system and capital allocation.