The South wanted a high duty upon
sugars and a low duty upon coarse cloth. The New England delegates
insisted upon the contrary.
"The order of the day seems to be to catch and keep and huckster
sectional interests without regarding the nation as a whole," wrote a
disgusted member to one of his constituents. "We can unite, as you have
seen, from Maine to Louisiana in favor of voting money into our own
pockets; but I despair of seeing a united vote in favor of our
constituents."
This tariff measure of 1816, the first after the war, was a protective
action in form rather than by intention. The Republicans looked on it
as corrective of the many acts which during the war had almost doubled
the duties to secure revenue. It was a kind of transition from the
tariff policy of the Hamiltonians, nearly twenty years before, to that
of Clay, ten years later. That tariff issues were not yet developed
and sectional interests appreciated is evidenced by the fact that
Calhoun was an earnest advocate of this measure and that Webster voted
against it. A comparison of the votes in House and Senate indicated
slightly the sectional tendency which was to characterise the tariff
question when fully developed.
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