Название: A Vast and Fiendish Plot:
Автор: Clint Johnson
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780806533889
isbn:
New York City’s merchants shared the South’s anger at what the bill would do to New York’s import and export business. With Southern trade already off by 50 percent with New York due to the Southern recession, the city’s merchants feared the Morrill Tariff could send New York into the same recession early in 1861.
The Journal of Commerce laid out in print what most of the merchants were thinking, “The merchants are waking up to the fact that a tariff bill is hanging over them and likely to prove disastrous to their trade.”
“The passage of the Bill in its present shape will bring ruin and disaster upon a very large class of merchants,” wrote an importer in the Herald.
Already too late with their protests since the bill had overwhelming support among the legislators in New England and the western states (today’s Midwest), New York’s merchants vainly explained to anyone who would listen that the Morrill bill would be bad for New York. It would double the cost of some goods coming into the port, which meant customers would stop buying imported goods from New York merchants. It would be complicated and time-consuming to enforce, as separate items in an entire shipment would be taxed at varying rates. Just sorting through what tariff rates applied to which goods would take days to accomplish, which meant ships would be backed up in the harbor waiting to unload on the city’s wharves.
The New York City Chamber of Commerce predicted that “the commerce of the City of New York would shrink into one-tenth of its present compass…. This measure is known to be obnoxious to the Southern States. To pass it when a part of them are not represented in Congress could scarcely fail to widen the existing breach and present a new and serious obstacle to reconciliation.”
After Lincoln was elected, the entire delegation of Southern senators (with the exception of Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee) and representatives walked out of Congress early in 1861. With a Senate made up entirely of Northerners, the Morrill Tariff sailed through with no opposition. Ironically, the bill was signed into law, not by Republican Lincoln who had made signing it a campaign promise, but by outgoing Democrat James Buchanan, whose Pennsylvania congressional delegation had been strong supporters.
As important as the problem of the impending Morrill Tariff was for New York City’s merchants, it paled beside the election of Abraham Lincoln as president.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.