Sunday, October 3, 2010

Tariff of abomination

The touchy tariff issue had been one of John Quincy Adam's biggest headaches . Now Andrew Jackson felt his predecessor's pain . Tariffs protected American industry against competition from European manufactured goods , but they also drove up prices for all Americans and invited retaliatory tariffs on American agriculture exports abroad. In 1824 congress had increased the general tariff significantly, bleated for still higher barriers. Southerners as heavy consumers of manufactured goods were hostile to tariffs. They were shocked by the ourageous rates of the tariff of 1828. Hotheads branded it the "Black tariff" or the "tariff of abominations". Several began to protest but in the end they saw they were stuck with the bill.

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