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Article: Tariff of Abominations
- Article from:
- Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS
By the late 1820s the southeastern region of the United States was economically depressed. While the industrial northeast flourished, the agrarian south languished. Many historians now recognize that the soil of the older southern states was worn out and depleted, especially compared to the richer soil of the new Gulf states; at the time, however, many southerners blamed their fiscal ailments on tariffs. Leadership in the fight against the tariff fell to South Carolina, where the plantation aristocrats enjoyed political power and where the relative decline in prosperity was the greatest.
South Carolina's most eloquent spokesperson was John C. Calhoun (1782
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