1830 Andrew Jackson - Jackson's Way to Fix the Tariff of Abominations

In 1830, during Andrew Jackson's second year in office, Sectionalism was tearing the country apart.  The tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations was pitting the Southern agricultural interests against the Northeaster manufacturing interests.  The tariff increased the price of finished goods and was also blamed for a drop-in cotton price.  The southern states complained that they were being overly taxed to protect the interests of the Northeast.  The Northeast was complaining about provisions inserted into the Tariff by the Democratic party that were targeting their industries causing lower prices of their manufactured goods.   Nobody was happy, and each side blamed the other.  Jackson blamed Congress and their backroom deals that packed into the tariff measures that served local interests instead of the good of the whole country.   In his second Annual Address, President Andrew Jackson had a radical solution.  Congress should have an up or down vote on each provision of the tariff individually.  If a protective measure cannot stand up on its own merit, than it should be dismissed. 

The Tariff of 1828, better known as the tariff of abominations had a significant impact on the economy of the Southern states.   The tariff placed a 38% tax on 92% of all imported goods, and because the South was hit especially hard as they relied on either imported finished good from Europe or those manufactured in the North.   Those in the south were livid.  Not only were they forced to pay higher prices for finished goods, they saw it as an excessive tax that was unfairly targeting the South and favoring the manufacturers of the North.  To make matters even worse, the tariff led the British to reduce their imports of Cotton from the United States, leading to a double whammy for the South.  Lower profits from the sale of cotton and higher costs of finished goods.   In 1828, many in the South had predicted this outcome and the outcries against the tariff reached a fever-pitch.   President John Quincy Adams acknowledged their concerns but placed the responsibility to fix it on Congress.  Adams, was confident that Congress ought to, and would modify the tariff accordingly to alleviate any unfair burdens on "any one section of the Union."  His opponents though, notched up the opposition by claiming that the tariff was unconstitutional because it favored one sector of the economy over another.   Ultimately arguments over the constitutionality of the tariff led to the South Carolina nullification crisis.  

Despite the uproar, Jackson remained hopeful that with prudent management of our manufacturing systems and capital, the nation's industry would surely survive this shock and in the end still turn a profit.  President Jackson knew that there were serious flaws in the Tariff of 1828, but he believed that Congress had the responsibility to fix it.   In 1830, Jackson accused some in Congress of being unwilling to improve any part for fear they would destroy the whole, and others of being afraid remove any bad measures lest they lose their own favored measures.  In other words, neither side was willing to address what they saw was wrong with the tariff because they didn't want to lose the deals, they had made to get it passed.   Afraid to make things worse and unwilling to give up any backroom deals Congress was paralyzed, and unwilling to compromise. 

Yet, Jackson was hopeful that the nation could survive the tariff and in the end succeed.  Things were not as bad as the newspapers and partisan hounds made it out to be.  He explained that it is in our own human nature to "mingle our interests and prejudices with the operation of our reasoning powers" and thus exaggerate both the good and the bad.   The “effects of the present tariff are doubtless over-rated, both in its evils and in its advantages".   Some were saying that the drop in the price of agricultural products was caused solely by the tariff, while others were blaming it for reducing the price of manufactured good.   Jackson argued that it was unlikely that either of these were true, and that both were being influenced by "interests and prejudices" or propaganda of the day.  Jackson provided alternative or "deeper and more pervading" reasons for the drop in prices such as external forces that were at play including the value of precious metals caused by a reduction of supply and increased demand.   He cited examples such the impact on the supply of gold and silver by the "civil confulsions" in Latin American countries where gold was abundant, and an ever-increasing efficiency of machinery.   Overall, Jackson reminded Congress and the nation, that despite the nation's economic struggles, the standard of living continued to increase.  America would soon prosper, so long as Congress could put aside their own "interests and prejudices" and just work out a compromise to fix it. 

"The difficulties of a more expedient adjustment of the present tariff, although great, are far from being insurmountable. Some are unwilling to improve any of its parts because they would destroy the whole; others fear to touch the objectionable parts lest those they approve should be jeoparded. I am persuaded that the advocates of these conflicting views do injustice to the American people and to their representatives. The general interest is the interest of each, and my confidence is entire that to insure the adoption of such modifications of the tariff as the general interest requires it is only necessary that that interest should be understood.
 It is an infirmity of our nature to mingle our interests and prejudices with the operation of our reasoning powers, and attribute to the objects of our likes and dislikes qualities they do not possess and effects they can not produce. The effects of the present tariff are doubtless over-rated, both in its evils and in its advantages. By one class of reasoners the reduced price of cotton and other agricultural products is ascribed wholly to its influence, and by another the reduced price of manufactured articles.
 The probability is that neither opinion approaches the truth, and that both are induced by that influence of interests and prejudices to which I have referred. The decrease of prices extends throughout the commercial world, embracing not only the raw material and the manufactured article, but provisions and lands. The cause must therefore be deeper and more pervading than the tariff of the United States. It may in a measure be attributable to the increased value of the precious metals, produced by a diminution of the supply and an increase in the demand, while commerce has rapidly extended itself and population has augmented. The supply of gold and silver, the general medium of exchange, has been greatly interrupted by civil convulsions in the countries from which they are principally drawn. A part of the effect, too, is doubtless owing to an increase of operatives and improvements in machinery. But on the whole it is questionable whether the reduction in the price of lands, produce, and manufactures has been greater than the appreciation of the standard of value."

Congress needed to get back to work and fix the tariff.   Jackson first reminded Congress that the primary purpose of a tariff (per the constitution) is to raise revenue, but as a secondary measure tariffs can also be adjusted to encourage industry or manufacturers as long as it is for the betterment of the country as a whole.  The goal ought to be guided by objects of national importance or national security especially those that are so important to national defense.   Turning then to the tariff of 1828, Jackson agreed that it put excessively high tariffs on some "comforts of life” and was attempting to protect some industries where America was just not ready to compete in yet.   But these were minor compared to the concerns that the tariff was too focused on benefiting local interests to justify a more general taxation.  This was by far the issue that was ripping America apart.  The south was furious that they were being taxed to protect the Northern manufacturers.   Jackson blamed Congress and their backroom deals. These deals brought together disparate interest groups into a coalition of mutual assistance in order to pass protective measures that on their own merit would never pass.   Jackson's solution was simple.   Bring each protective measure to the floor of Congress on its own for and up or down vote.  This way, any protective measures that were limited to serving only a local interest would fail, and those that succeed would have little danger of serving only a local interest.   Jackson wrote to Congress, that by adhering to this principle in a just manner, the nation's industries would be saved from the local prejudices that seek to serve their own interests over the good of the whole country.   This may not sound like such a radical idea, but just imagine a president today telling Congress that instead of voting on an omnibus appropriations bill, they should vote up or down on each individual line item.   Congress would be in an uproar because it would eliminate their ability to pad the budget with line items that brought home money to pet projects of their own state.  This is precisely what Jackson was urging Congress to do.  Rather than pass one big tariff bill, he wanted each measure to have its own up or down vote.   Good luck with that!

Jackson made it clear that he was aware of the "delicacy" of this subject and its impact on "extended interests".  He called it a subject that had to be "touched with the utmost caution", but one that the people had the right to demand.   Jackson knew his words would be met with partisan opposition, but he was putting the interests of Congress as an institution first.   The tariff of 1828 was tearing the nation apart, and the general interest of the nation was becoming subservient to the short-sighted views of individual factions.  Regional or sectional interests were ruling the day, and Jackson felt it was his duty to warn Congress of the "blighting" or fatal consequences of going down such a course.

"While the chief object of duties should be revenue, they may be so adjusted as to encourage manufactures. In this adjustment, however, it is the duty of the Government to be guided by the general good. Objects of national importance alone ought to be protected. Of these the productions of our soil, our mines, and our work shops, essential to national defense, occupy the first rank. What ever other species of domestic industry, having the importance to which I have referred, may be expected, after temporary protection, to compete with foreign labor on equal terms merit the same attention in a subordinate degree.
 The present tariff taxes some of the comforts of life unnecessarily high; it undertakes to protect interests too local and minute to justify a general exaction, and it also attempts to force some kinds of manufactures for which the country is not ripe. Much relief will be derived in some of these respects from the measures of your last session.
 The best as well as fairest mode of determining whether from any just considerations a particular interest ought to receive protection would be to submit the question singly for deliberation. If after due examination of its merits, unconnected with extraneous considerations -- such as a desire to sustain a general system or to purchase support for a different interest -- it should enlist in its favor a majority of the representatives of the people, there can be little danger of wrong or injury in adjusting the tariff with reference to its protective effect. If this obviously just principle were honestly adhered to, the branches of industry which deserve protection would be saved from the prejudice excited against them when that protection forms part of a system by which portions of the country feel or conceive themselves to be oppressed. What is incalculably more important, the vital principle of our system -- that principle which requires acquiescence in the will of the majority -- would be secure from the discredit and danger to which it is exposed by the acts of majorities founded not on identity of conviction, but on combinations of small minorities entered into for the purpose of mutual assistance in measures which, resting solely on their own merits, could never be carried.
 I am well aware that this is a subject of so much delicacy, on account of the extended interests in involves, as to require that it should be touched with the utmost caution, and that while an abandonment of the policy in which it originated -- a policy coeval with our Government, and pursued through successive Administrations -- is neither to be expected or desired, the people have a right to demand, and have demanded, that it be so modified as to correct abuses and obviate injustice.
 That our deliberations on this interesting subject should be uninfluenced by those partisan conflicts that are incident to free institutions is the fervent wish of my heart. To make this great question, which unhappily so much divides and excites the public mind, subservient to the short-sighted views of faction, must destroy all hope of settling it satisfactorily to the great body of the people and for the general interest. I can not, therefore, in taking leave of the subject, too earnestly for my own feelings or the common good warn you against the blighting consequences of such a course."

References

Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2019). Second Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/second-annual-message-3 [Accessed 31 Mar. 2019].

ThoughtCo. (2019). A Tariff Threatened to Split America Decades Before the Civil War. [online] Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/tariff-of-abominations-1773349 [Accessed 31 Mar. 2019].

Wagner, D. (2019). 1828 John Quincy Adams - Defending Protective Tariffs. [online] Stateoftheunionhistory.com. Available at: http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2018/07/1828-john-quincy-adams-defending.html [Accessed 31 Mar. 2019].

Wagner, D. (2019). 1829 Andrew Jackson - Reducing Tariffs on Coffee. [online] Stateoftheunionhistory.com. Available at: http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2018/10/1829-andrew-jackson-reducing-tariffs-on.html [Accessed 31 Mar. 2019].