Why did the south want a lower tariff?

Answer 1

The American Civil War was fought for a host of differing reasons. During that period of US history the northern states were primarily an industrial economy while the southern states were primarily an agricultural economy. Tariffs and taxes affected both in highly different ways, mostly to the detriment (in their eyes) of the southern states. They felt that they were being placed at a significant economic disadvantage. This, among other things, was definitely one of the causes of the eventual civil war.

Answer 2

The South didn't want high tariffs because they used so many imported goods from the north. If the imported goods were taxed, then the south had to pay money each time they needed anything from the North.

EDIT: A tariff is a tax on goods imported from foreign countries. Southerners tended to trade with foreign countries, particularly England. There were several reasons for this. Within the US there were only a few very poor roads, and these were almost exclusively dirt roads, or mud. What internal trade there was went on via coastal shipping, which was not an easy thing for sailing ships to do, before the days of steam ships. These coastal vessels could go some distance up some rivers, but really not very far into the interior and only people who lived near a navigable river could get any benefit from this means of transportation. Railroads were only just being built, and most of the tracks were in the north. Big plantations were often situated on navigable water and had their own docks. Their crops would be loaded right onto ships on their own docks, and sent off to England, which was an easier voyage due to prevailing winds and currents than attempting to sail coastwise. The plantation owners had trusted agents, businessmen, sometimes called factors, who would take care of selling the crop (most often cotton or tobacco) for the best price they could get in England. They would also buy whatever things the plantation owner had written to say he would like to have, which were all sort of consumer goods, clothing, shoes, books, furniture, musical instruments, hardware for the house, whatever the wife might want, cheap fabric to make clothes for the slaves, you name it. And then the factor would send these back by ship to the plantation. So just about every manufactured article in the southern home was of English make. Southern merchants did the same, and their stock of goods for sale to less wealthy families also tended to be of English origin. A tariff was a tax, added on to the cost of all these items, which made everything the southerners used more expensive. In the northern US the industrial revolution was just getting started, and there were manufacturers beginning to make these same types of goods. But, they were regarded as inferior in quality to the preferred English items, and were more expensive, until the tariff cost was added onto the imported articles. So the tariff was a way to make southerners buy inferior goods from northern merchants, or else pay more for what they really wanted than what those items actually cost, with the added money going to pay for ALL of the government. There were about one-fifth as many white southerners as there were white northerners, and the tariff money the southerners paid was 65% of the government's total income.

Answer 3

Because they had a mostly agricultural economy, and needed to import many commodities from Europe.

Answer 4

The South needed to buy goods from other countries.

Answer 5

Why did so many immigrants come to the United States between 1880- 1920?