TARIFFS are lists of articles with their import or export duties noted. The term is also used for the laws regulating the duties and. in a number of countries, for any price schedules.
I. (a) The Tariff Act of 1789 was the first legislative measure passed by the United States. The Protectionists have pointed to it as showing the disposition of the first Congress to adopt at once a policy of protection; the free traders have pointed to it similarly as showing a predilection for their policy. Each has some ground for the claim. The duties of the act of 1789 were very moderate, and, as compared with those which the United States has had under any subsequent legislation, may be described as free trade duties. On the other hand, the spirit of the act of 1789 was protective. Such in the main remained the situation until 1816, duties being indeed raised from time to time in order to secure more revenue, but the spirit and the general rate of the duties not being sensibly modified.
(b) After the close of the War of 1812, however, a new spirit and a new policy developed. A demand arose for two closely connected measures : protection to domestic manufactures and internal improvements. Protection was demanded as a means both of aiding young industries and of fostering a home market for agricultural products; it was a part of the "American system." Some movement in the direction of higher duties was manifested as early as 1816. Still greater changes were made in 1824, 1828 and 1832. The tariff of 1828 was affected by some political manipulation, which caused it to contain objectionable provisions, and to be dubbed "the tariff of abominations." The so-called abominations were removed in 1832, when the protective system was deliberately and carefully rearranged. By this time, however,
the opposition to it in the South had reached a pitch so intense that concessions had to be made. The nullification movement led in 1833 to the well-known compromise, by which the rates of duty as established by the act of 1832 were to be gradually reduced, reaching in 1842 a general level of 20%. But the reductions of duty made under it proved ephemeral. In 1842, when the final 2o% rate was to have gone into effect, the protectionists again had control of Congress, and after a brief period of two months, during which this 20% rate was in force, passed the Tariff Act of 1842, which once more restored the protective system in a form not much less extreme than that of 1832.
(c) Four years later, however, 1846, a very considerable change was secured by the South, and a new era was entered on. The Democratic party now was in control of legislation, and in the Tariff Act of 1846 established a system of moderate and purely ad valorem duties, in which the protected articles were subjected, as a rule, to a rate of 3o%, in some cases to rates of 25 and 2o%. The system, often spoken of as one of free trade, was in reality only one of moderated protection. In 1857 duties were still further reduced, the rate on most protected commodities going down to II. The second great period in the tariff history of the United States opens with the Civil War. In the session of 1860-61, im mediately preceding the outbreak of the conflict, the Morrill Tariff Act was passed by the Republican party, then in control because the defection of Southern members of Congress had already begun. The advances then made were of little importance as compared with the far-reaching increases of duty during the Civil War. Duties were steadily raised, partly by way of off-set to the internal taxes, partly to get additional revenue and largely because of a disposition to protect domestic industries. The close of the war thus left the United States with a complicated system of very high taxes both on imported and on domestic products.