The tariff of 1828, or the Tariff of Abominations as it was denoted by Southern States, was the high point of tariffs in United States history. While designed to protect the American economy, what the North believed would be as a whole, this new tariff crippled the Southern economy until it was repealed in 1833 after the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina, led by John C. Calhoun. The tariff put a tax on goods imported from Britain in order to raise the prices of these goods to that of what the same goods produced in the U.S. were selling for. These goods however, were not widely available in the South; they were industrial goods previously bought almost exclusively from Britain. In addition, raising prices on British goods meant less British goods were bought in the U.S. The effect of this was that the British were no longer making the amount of money required to buy and import agricultural products, such as cotton and tobacco, from the South. Now not only were Southern farmers paying more for necessary industrial goods, but they were exporting substantially fewer goods to Britain. Southern states believed it unconstitutional to give preference to one sector of the economy over the other, and South Carolina decided they could nullify the law, being as they believed it was unconstitutional, and threatened to secede from the union.
Growing disdain between the North and South with regards to slavery, coupled with this new tariff that strengthened the Northern economy while vastly weakening the Southern economy, greatly increased the already omnipresent sectionalism between the regions. Both of these issues, the basis of the great sectionalism, all stem from the agriculturally based economy of the South. In this way, agriculture is a dynamic part of the tensions that led up to actual secession and the Civil War.
Sources:
1. https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Tariff_of_1828.html
2. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0P3JOoEtDg
Growing disdain between the North and South with regards to slavery, coupled with this new tariff that strengthened the Northern economy while vastly weakening the Southern economy, greatly increased the already omnipresent sectionalism between the regions. Both of these issues, the basis of the great sectionalism, all stem from the agriculturally based economy of the South. In this way, agriculture is a dynamic part of the tensions that led up to actual secession and the Civil War.
Sources:
1. https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Tariff_of_1828.html
2. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0P3JOoEtDg