Sec. 5. #The tariff, 1816-1845.# Tho rates had been rising, manufacturers had been making efforts to secure higher rates for protection, even as early as 1803.  Effectual exclusion of foreign goods and consequent stimulus to the establishment of manufactures in the eastern states resulted, in the period 1808 and 1815, from the embargoes and the war.  On the return of peace imports were resumed on a large scale and the call for a higher tariff was loud.  In the revision of 1816, rates in a number of cases were fixed higher than those before the war.  Average rates are said to have been about 20 per cent.  The rate on both cotton and woolen goods was 25 per cent (and the minimum on cotton goods was a specific rate of 6-1/4 cents a yard).  High rates were imposed on pig iron (50 cents a hundred), hammered bar (75 cents a hundred), and rolled bar ($1.50 a hundred, equivalent to about 100 per cent ad valorem).  Rates were raised on many other articles.  The average ad valorem rates collected in 1821 attained the remarkably high figures of 36 per cent on dutiable goods, and almost 35 per cent on free and dutiable together.

In 1824 in response to the growing sentiment in favor of the so-called “American policy of protection,” many rates were still further increased, as those on cotton goods and woolen goods (to 33-1/3 per cent) and some kinds of iron.  Cheap wool was now taxed 15 per cent and that valued over 10 cents a pound at 20 per cent (to be 30 per cent after 1826).  In 1828, in the “tariff of abominations” which evoked much bitter criticism, the rates on all these goods were again raised, those on woolen goods being in some cases 100 per cent on the value, and those on iron being from 40 to 100 per cent on the value, and duties were levied on molasses, hemp, and flax.  The results appear in the statistics of 1830, showing the average ad valorem rates on dutiable imports to be nearly 49 per cent, and on free and dutiable together to be over 45 per cent.  This marks a temporary high point in tariff rates.  Revenues were then becoming excessive and that year the rates on tea and coffee and some other goods were reduced.

Violent protests, especially from the South, were made against the protective system, and the tariff became a more important political issue.  Then in 1832 a number of changes were made, mostly downward; the iron tariff, for example, being reduced to about the level of 1824.  Average rates were thus brought down to about 33 per cent on dutiable goods.  The compromise tariff act of 1833 provided for a process of reduction during a period terminating in 1842, the cut to be small at first, then to be made more rapidly to bring the maximum rate on any article down to about 20 per cent.[2] These changes, while as yet incompleted had, in 1840, brought the average rates on dutiable goods down to but 30 per cent and on free and dutiable together to 15 per cent.  The 20 per cent rate, however, remained in effect only two months in 1842, when it was replaced by a tariff with higher rates distinctly protective, passed by the Whig party and which remained in force four years.