The theory accepted by all parties, however, at the moment, was, that the duties were paid ultimately by the consumers of the imported goods. Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, pronounced this doctrine himself. Upon this view the North must pay the duties equally, at least, with the South. So long, then, as this idea was held, and so long as the commercial interests of Massachusetts, Maine, and the city of New York made common cause with the agricultural interests of the South against the bill, it could not be strictly regarded as sectional legislation, it could not develop into a political and constitutional question between the North and the South.
| The bill amended and passed. |
While this combination of interests was not able to prevent the House from finally passing the bill by a narrow majority, it did succeed in imposing several very substantial modifications upon it in the direction of more moderate protection.
In the Senate the bill suffered still further modification in the same direction. The burden of the Senate's amendments fell, however, on the wool- and hemp-growing and liquor-distilling West. It was for this reason that the House of Representatives refused to concur in them. Recourse was then had to a conference committee, which arranged a compromise that gave a little less protection than the House had voted, and a little more than the Senate had voted.
The tariff of May, 1824, was still only a moderately protective tariff. It was certainly in only one particular anything like prohibitory; it preserved the high tariff of 1816 on coarse cotton goods. In other respects it was not much more than a continuation of the reasonable duties already imposed.
| The tariff of 1824 not yet considered sectional legislation. |
So long as the tariff remained moderately protective, and was approved in Kentucky and Missouri, and disapproved in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and the city of New York, and so long as its burdens were generally believed to fall ultimately upon the consumers of the dutiable articles, it could not take on the form of a sectional issue, dominated by the question of slavery. Some of the Southerners had, indeed, discovered that slave labor could not be employed in the mills, and that, therefore, protection of manufactures would not secure the establishment of these industries in the South, and had begun to treat the tariff question in a manner to develop a party issue out of it. But this tendency had not advanced far enough in 1824 to produce a division of the all-comprehending Republican party. It needed another four years of personal differences among the leaders, another revision of the tariff in the direction of higher duties, and a more complete consolidation of the North for protection, before this result could be attained.