More On the Myth of Tariff-Induced American Industrialization
Although we were carelessly inaccurate in our political history – contrary to our claim, the Whigs did not go extinct after 1828 – the economic substance of Phil Gramm’s and my letter in today’s Wall Street Journal is indeed accurate: U.S. tariff rates fell – in fits and starts – in the 30 years from 1830 to 1860, and this period witnessed faster annual rates of growth in U.S. industrialization than did those periods in the 19th century when tariff rates were generally rising.
In an otherwise excellent column (“Trump’s Echo of 1829,” op-ed, Feb. 27) Karl Rove contends that President Andrew Jackson “presided over the ‘Tariff of Abominations.’” This requires some clarification.
The Tariff of Abominations was signed into law by John Quincy Adams in 1828. It was a major issue in that year’s election that swept Jackson and his new party, the Democratic Republicans, into power. Jackson supporters viewed the tariff as an elitist policy that benefited the few at the expense of the many.
That interpretation applies equally today. Not only did the Tariff of Abominations lead to a Whig party bloodbath; the election set the Whigs on a course to extinction. For the next 30 years, average tariff rates declined by 70% and America experienced an unprecedented period of industrialization. Immediately prior to the Civil War, the U.S. had one of the lowest average tariff rates in the world and a booming economy.
The lesson of the Tariff of Abominations, the ensuing Jackson landslide and the 30 years of rapid industrialization as tariffs plummeted is that such levies don’t produce prosperity or help win elections.
Phil Gramm and Prof. Donald Boudreaux
AEI and George Mason University
Helotes, Texas, and Fairfax, Va.
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