Lincoln's Tariff War

When Charles Adams published his book "For Good and Evil", a world history of taxation, the most controversial chapter by far was the one on whether or not tariffs caused the American War between the States. That chapter generated so much discussion and debate that Adams's publisher urged him to turn it into an entire book, which he did, in the form of "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession."

Many of the reviewers of this second book, so confident were they that slavery was the one and only possible reason for both Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency and the war itself, excoriated Adams for his analysis that the tariff issue was a major cause of the war. (Adams recently told me in an email that after one presentation to a New York City audience, he felt lucky that "no one brought a rope.")

My book, "The Real Lincoln", has received much the same response with regard to the tariff issue. But there is overwhelming evidence that: 1) Lincoln, a failed one-term congressman, would never have been elected had it not been for his career-long devotion to protectionism; and 2) the 1861 Morrill tariff, which Lincoln was expected to enforce, was the event that triggered Lincoln’s invasion, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

A very important article that documents in great detail the role of protectionism in Lincoln’s ascendancy to the presidency is Columbia University historian Reinhard H. Luthin's "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff," published in the July 1944 issue of The American Historical Review. As I document in The Real Lincoln, the sixteenth president was one of the most ardent protectionists in American politics during the first half of the nineteenth century and had established a long record of supporting protectionism and protectionist candidates in the Whig Party.

In 1860, Pennsylvania was the acknowledged key to success in the presidential election. It had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Pennsylvania Republicans let it be known that any candidate who wanted the state’s electoral votes must sign on to a high protectionist tariff to benefit the state’s steel and other manufacturing industries. As Luthin writes, the Morrill tariff bill itself "was sponsored by the Republicans in order to attract votes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey."

The most influential newspaper in Illinois at the time was the Chicago Press and Tribune under the editorship of Joseph Medill, who immediately recognized that favorite son Lincoln had just the protectionist credentials that the Pennsylvanians wanted. He editorialized that Lincoln "was an old Clay Whig, is right on the tariff and he is exactly right on all other issues. Is there any man who could suit Pennsylvania better?"

At the same time, a relative of Lincoln’s by marriage, a Dr. Edward Wallace of Pennsylvania, sounded Lincoln out on the tariff by communicating to Lincoln through his brother, William Wallace. On October 11, 1859, Lincoln wrote Dr. Edward Wallace: "My dear Sir: [Y]our brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff view, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject. I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views" (emphasis added). Lincoln was establishing his bona fides as an ardent protectionist.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, the protectionist tariff was a key plank. As Luthin writes, when the protectionist tariff plank was voted in, "The Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations were terrific in their applause over the tariff resolution, and their hilarity was contagious, finally pervading the whole vast auditorium." Lincoln received "the support of almost the entire Pennsylvania delegation" writes Luthin, "partly through the efforts of doctrinaire protectionists such as Morton McMichael . . . publisher of Philadelphia’s bible of protectionism, the North American newspaper."

Returning victorious to his home of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln attended a Republican Party rally that included "an immense wagon" bearing a gigantic sign reading "Protection for Home Industry." Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) economic guru, Pennsylvania steel industry publicist/lobbyist Henry C. Carey, declared that without a high protectionist tariff, "Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be dead before the day of inauguration."

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion--no using force against, or among the people anywhere" (emphasis added).

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion." That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point. Lincoln’s economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").

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What is so hard to understand?

Nothing. You post the Opinion of one editor of one newspaper when the facts are that the pressure on Lincoln from the textile industry was exactly the opposite of that Opinion. The textile industry, which was the largest industry in the nation in 1861, lobbied mightly, and thankfully unsucessfuly, to keep the slave produced cotton flowing north by allowing secession. War was not in their best interests and they suffered for it.

If we were to project ourselves 140 years into the future and read selected editorial Opinions from 1998, we will have ample "proof" (by your standard) that Bill Clinton was not only the first black president, but the greatest president in history who was hounded by those evil Conservatives.

Why is so hard for you to actually look for the primary sources as opposed to taking every dung pile of Lost Cause mythology from DiLorenzo, or his "primary sources" at Crown Rights, as fact?

You have been living on junk history. It's time to grow up.

I've become accustomed to whack-nuts claiming that Smoot-Hawley was the MAJOR cause of the Great Depression

I never heard anyone claiming it "caused" the crash of '29, but I have heard many well respected economists say that it deepened the recession and caused a cascade effect that prevented recovery --- i.e. Depression.

Looking at that chart, I was amazed at how high the rates were. I had not realized they were that big and that broad based. From a pure economic standpoint, it does not appear to be either a revenue increasing plan or a pragmatic protection tariff for key industries, but a massive tax increase, in the midst of an economic downturn --- Not a smart move.

Maybe after I finish fighting the Civil War, I'll dig into the Depression. ;~))

but I have heard many well respected economists say that it deepened the recession and caused a cascade effect that prevented recovery --- i.e. Depression.

These claims are also greatly exaggerated. Prior to the Depression, imports formed only 6 percent of the GNP. With average tariffs ranging from 40 to 60 percent (sources vary), this represents an effective tax of merely 2.4 to 3.6 percent. Yet the Great Depression resulted in a 31 percent drop in GNP and 25 percent unemployment. The idea that such a small tax could cause so much economic devastation is too far-fetched to be believed.

Even an effective tax of 2.4 to 3.6 percent is overstating the effects of the tariff. The tariff rates were already high to begin with. One source reveals that Smoot-Hawley raised rates from 26 to 50 percent; another source from 44 to 60 percent. In that case, we are talking about an effective tax increase of 1.4 percent at most.

Furthermore, Smoot-Hawley did not entirely shut down trade. For the U.S., it fell from 6 to 2 percent of the GNP between 1930 and 1932. This does not mean, of course, that Americans necessarily "lost" that 4 percent. It merely means that they had 4 percent more to spend on their own domestic products.

Looking at that chart, I was amazed at how high the rates were. I had not realized they were that big and that broad based.

Yes, I agree that 60% is excessively high. However, comparison to the 20% effective rate on total imports would seem to indicate that they were not all that broad-based. Interestingly, during the 1820s period you noted, the rate on dutiable imports and the effective rate on ALL imports are much more in line with each other.

Despite staunchly opposing those who exagerate the negative effects of tariffs, I do not myself advocate the use of selective or protective tariffs. Nor do I favor excessively high tariffs such as those that have been imposed in our past.

Rather, I advocate a truly broad-based revenue tariff that would be applied to ALL imports at a rated between 10% and 20%. (This would be comparable to the "red line" in the chart.)

Targeted, or selective/protective tariffs do not work well and skew the competitive playing field. They may benefit some industries while hurting others, while also creating loopholes to circumvent the tariff. A broad-based revenue tariff avoids these complexities while providing minimal advantage to domestic production in our domestic market (IMHO, necessary at this time due to other burdensome regulations the federal government imposes on domestic industry). The relatively low rate would not shut down trade, and revenues could be used to offset cuts in other forms of domestic taxation.

Good Post.

“Today’s tyranny began with Lincoln. He voided Self-Determination and the Constitution and threw thousands of Northerners into prison without trial when they objected to his usurpation OR WERE EVEN SUSPECTED OF BEING AGAINST HIS TYRANNY! He directly caused the deaths of tens of thousands of prisoners, Northern and Southern, by starvation and disease. The blood of 600,000 soldiers of the North and South are on his hands. The slavery of the empire which binds us today owes its greatest debt to him.” --FreeReb

**“Every clause of Jefferson’s tremendous indictment of King George in 1776 was true of Lincoln in 1861-1865.” ---John Gardiner Tyler in THE CONFEDERATE CATECHISM, Section 10, pg. 5. **

Your knowledge of history outside of what you learned at your little public school is lacking sorely.

Actually, they taught me the same half-baked revisionist BS history that you preach here ---- tariffs caused the war and slavery was just a side light. It was from homogonized corporate feel-good history texts that would sell just as well in 1950s Jim Crow Alabama as in Pennsylvania.

It wasn't till I began reading beyond the politically correct corporate texts that I discovered the truth. You should try it sometime. You'll find there is a big world out there that your Lost Cause Mythology never covers.

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