Did Tariffs Really Cause The Civil War? The Morrill Act At 150

Did protective tariffs really bring about the Civil War? It's an argument that enthusiasts of the era are bound to encounter at some point, and also among the most contentious and least understood of the many debates surrounding the instigating causes of secession 150 years ago this month.

The tariff thesis is contentious because it is often interpreted as an attempt to displace the primacy of slavery as the underlying instigator of events in Civil War causality. In this simplified form, the argument may be easily disposed of by referring to South Carolina's Declaration of Immediate Causes, which attributed their action to "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery." Yet as we will see, the tariff issue cannot be completely discounted from the discussion of Civil War causality.

Sociologist James W. Loewen attempted to do as much in a recent article for the Washington Post proclaiming tariffs one of the "5 myths" of the Civil War (this article has since provoked a lively discussion on the history blogosphere with economist - and fellow Austrian School thinker - Thomas DiLorenzo offering a strong rebuttal, and Loewen answering at HNNby digging in and reiterating his original position with little more to answer its indicated faults). The gist of Loewen's claim appears in the Washington Post:

"[The Tariff Thesis is] flatly wrong. High tariffs had prompted the Nullification Crisis in 1831-33, when, after South Carolina demanded the right to nullify federal laws or secede in protest, President Andrew Jackson threatened force. No state joined the movement, and South Carolina backed down. Tariffs were not an issue in 1860, and Southern states said nothing about them. Why would they? Southerners had written the tariff of 1857, under which the nation was functioning. Its rates were lower than at any point since 1816."

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