Talk:Walker tariff

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• Politically there was little talk about tariffs in the run-up to the Civil War. The South's leading port by far was New Orleans. In 1858 it exported $100 million worth of cotton and other goods. But it only imported $10 million of goods that were subject to tariffs, and paid less than $3 million. [DeBow's Review (Oct 1859) pp 475, 478] The other major port, Charleston, paid less. Much of that money of course was spent in the South by the federal government--for example, a fourth of the army was stationed in Texas. The South imported very little machinery from Europe; it mostly imported cotton and woolen cloth. Politically the southerners had their way with tariffs; theystrongly supported the low Walker Tariff in 1847, as well as the additional reductions in the 1850s. Not until the after seven states seceeded and pulled out its Senators did the Republicans manage to pass their high Morrill Tariff -- which would have cost New Orleans another $2 million a year. No leading Confederate said tarifffs were a main reason for secession. Since 1990, however, some neo-Confederates have combined with laissez-faire economists to argue that tariffs somehow caused the war, not slavery.

It seems to me to be appropriate to have text about the effects of a tariff. Why do other ediotrs think this should be deleted? -Will Beback 22:01, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello. I deleted that section because it has more to do with a larger history of tariffs and not this particular bill. There isn't anything specific about the Walker Tariff in it other than saying the south strongly supported it in 1847 (the wrong year!), and the south supported it is already in the article. The statistics there are from 1858 after the Walker Tariff was replaced by the Tariff of 1857 so it isn't about the Walker Tariff's effects either.

I don't know what laissez faire economists in 1990 has to do with anything about the Walker Tariff's effects.

What we have here is a paragraph that has lots of little things that belong in lots of different articles instead of together. Thanks. - Justin Morrill

specify

Should specify these import only tariffs, not export. If true.

Mydogtrouble (talk) 20:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

This article is almost entirely unsourced

see subject. there are two references for the page and they only concern the ending of it, everything from the start to the final 2 paragraphs has no citations or anything. this article needs cleanup, i'd do it myself but the Polk presidency is not my strong-suit (i only found this page from going through endless links on one of the Whig pages while bored) ~2026-55966-8 (talk) 16:38, 3 February 2026 (UTC)