Sec. 6. #The tariff, 1846-1860.# The Democratic party coming into power, passed the Act of 1846, called the Walker tariff, after the Secretary of the Treasury.  As he was a believer in free trade, this act is often mistakenly described as a free-trade measure.  It was, in truth, far from that.  Most of the rates were indeed lower than those that had been in force between 1816 and 1846 (with the exception of those between 1840 and 1842), but still some of the rates were high (a few as high as 100 per cent) and many of them were strongly protective in nature.  The fact that tea and coffee were on the free list is marked evidence that considerations of revenue did not dominate.  The rate on cotton goods was 25 per cent and the rates on many of the most important other protected articles (iron, woolen goods, manufactures of iron, leather, paper, glass, and wood) were 30 per cent.  The average rates under the act for its last eight years (to 1857) were on dutiable 26 per cent, on free and dutiable 23 per cent.  The country prospered for eleven years under this tariff.  In 1857, rates were again reduced, the more important protective rates from 30 per cent to a level of 24 per cent.  This time partizan considerations played no part in the discussion.  The revenues of the government had been excessive and the need of a reduction was admitted by nearly every one.  The average ad valorem rates under the nearly four years of the act of 1857 were about 20 per cent on dutiable and 16 per cent on free and dutiable (the lowest in the century between 1812 and 1913).

Sec. 7. #The tariff, 1861-1871.# The reduction of rates in 1857 was made just at the time when the country was at the height of a wave of prosperity and of speculation which culminated in the financial crisis of that year.[3] As always at such times, the government’s revenues fell greatly.  The first purpose in the revision of the tariff in 1861 was simply to restore the rates in the act of 1846.  But the Morrill act which became a law just before Fort Sumter was fired upon, contained many higher rates and its purpose was avowedly protective.  This necessarily involved a sacrifice of possible revenues for the government.[4] Then from the beginning of the Civil War till its close some rates were raised almost every month with little scrutiny or debate.  The average ad valorem rate jumped from 19 per cent on dutiable in 1861 (under the law of 1857) to an average of 35 per cent in the three years, 1862-1865.

The most important tariff acts of the war were those of 1862 and 1864 by which large increases were made on many articles.  These tariff acts were passed in connection with far-reaching and burdensome applications of internal revenue taxes on many kinds of manufactures.  The tariff rates were primarily intended to offset these taxes, “to impose an additional duty on imports equal to the tax which had been put on the domestic articles,” as was said by the sponsors of the bill.  These rates were similar in purpose to compensatory rates, and in many cases they were more than sufficient to offset the internal taxes.  Under the last of these acts the duties collected in the six years from 1865 to 1870 averaged nearly 48 per cent on dutiable and nearly 44 per cent on free and dutiable.