Morrill Tariff

Morrill Tariff

Other short titles	Morrill Tariff Act of 1861  · Act of March 2, 1861
Long title	An Act to provide for the Payment of outstanding Treasury Notes, to authorize a Loan, to regulate and fix the Duties on Imports, and for other Purposes.
Enacted by	the 36th United States Congress
Effective	April 1, 1861
Citations
Public law	Chapter 68
Statutes at Large	12 Stat. 178
Codification
Acts amended	Tariff of 1857 (superseded)
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 338 by R‑VT Justin S. Morrillth on March 12, 1860 Committee consideration by House Committee on Ways and Means Passed the House on May 10, 1860 (105–64) Passed the Senate on February 20, 1861 (25–14) Reported by the joint conference committee on February 1861; agreed to by the House on February 27, 1861 (Voice vote (agreed to conference report)) and by the Senate on March 2, 1861 (Voice vote (agreed to conference report)) Signed into law by President James Buchanan on March 2, 1861
Major amendments
Revenue Act of 1861

The Morrill Tariff was an increased import tariff in the United States that was adopted on March 2, 1861, during the last two days of the Presidency of James Buchanan, a Democrat. It was the twelfth of the seventeen planks in the platform of the incoming Republican Party, which had not yet been inaugurated, and the tariff appealed to industrialists and factory workers as a way to foster rapid industrial growth. It was named for its sponsor, Representative Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, who drafted it with the advice of the economist Henry Charles Carey. The eventual passage of the tariff in the US Senate was assisted by multiple opponent senators from the South resigning from Congress after their states declared their secession from the Union. The tariff rates were raised to both make up for a federal deficit that had led to increased government debt in recent years and to encourage domestic industry and foster high wages for industrial workers.

The Morrill Tariff replaced a lower Tariff of 1857 which had been developed in response to a federal budget surplus in the mid-1850s. Two additional tariffs sponsored by Morrill, each higher than the previous one, were passed under President Abraham Lincoln to raise revenue that was urgently needed during the American Civil War. The tariff inaugurated a period of continuous protectionism in the United States, and that policy remained until the adoption of the Revenue Act of 1913, or Underwood Tariff. The schedule of the Morrill Tariff and both of its successors were retained long after the end of the Civil War.