How did tariffs create a conflict between the North and the South?

Answer 1

There was not much industry in the south so tariffs didn't affect the south in a good way. When they bought things (ex: cloth) from the north they had to pay more if the cloth was imported from Another Country. The north was affected in a good way. When business owners ordered things for their store from another country, people had to pay more because of the tariff put a tax on things from another country. Well, the south didn't like this, so the tariffs were one cause of the civil war.

Answer 2

The North wanted to levy tariffs on imports, to protect its own manufacturing sector.

The South had almost no manufacturing industry, so it depended heavilty on imports. Therefore it regarded tariffs as a tax on the South, levied by a hostile Northern-biased Congress.

Answer 3

They polarised opinion because they benefited the North and penalised the South.

The North was wanting to protect its young industrial base by taxing imports.

The South had only its one big commodity - cotton - and needed to import almost everything else.

Answer 4

The North had most of the factories in the country, and a tariff would make the cheap foreign imports more expensive than the products the Northern factories made. A tariff would have forced Southerners to buy manufactured goods at higher prices from the North, which angered the South.

Answer 5

The North was trying to protect its fast-growing industry against cheap foreign imports.

The South had almost no industry, and wanted cheap imports.

So the tariffs looked like the North taxing the South.

This deepened the divide between the two sections, and caused the South to start making plans for secession, as it felt that it could live on its cotton revenues.

Answer 6

The politic of protective tariffs benefited more the North than the South, because it gave to the northern industries the means to sell to the South their products at lower prices than those of European origin.

On the other side, the South had an industrial structure so poor that the advantages given by the protective tariffs to the Southern industries were almost irrelevant.