First off, the original warehousing act was passed in 1846. The 1854 act only changed the place of storing imports for up to three years before the tariff was paid from government customs houses to private bonded warehouses. Second, the bill was heartily approved of by the southern agricultural interests, as reported by DeBow:
"We were at Memphis, Tennessee, when a large portion of the Southern States were present, and the whole of the Western ones. Mr. Minor, from Virginia, reported favorably on the system; and had the vote of the Convention been taken. upon the merits of the question, from everything we saw and heard there, little doubt can exist that the report would have been almost unanimously adopted. Unfortunately, however, a gentleman, Mr. Trescott, of Charleston, presented a minority report, signed by himself and three others, which disposed of the question, as we conceived, on grounds scarcely tenable. The minority were not opposed to the warehousing system, but did not think it a proper subject to come before the Convention, partaking, as it did of a party complexion, and relating more to the mercantile than to the agricultural interests."(...)""It is a high and strong recommendation in favor of it, (the warehousing system,) that it was adopted on the most liberal and extensive footing in all those nations most celebrated for their commercial wisdom and experience. The want of it has already driven from New Orleans nearly the whole of the Mexican trade, as the merchants of that country can no longer procure here those large and varied assortments of foreign manufactures, which were always to be obtained in this city, and this lucrative want of commerce has been transferred to Havana, where a liberal warehouse system exists."
http://www.earlyrepublic.net/jm990907.htm
"First off, the original warehousing act was passed in 1846. The 1854 act only changed the place of storing imports for up to three years before the tariff was paid from government customs houses to private bonded warehouses. Second, the bill was heartily approved of by the southern agricultural interests, as reported by DeBow:"
That must mean something to you.