became a law just before Fort Sumter was fired upon,
contained many higher rates and its purpose was avowedly protective.
This necessarily involved a sacrifice of possible revenues for the
government.[4] Then from the beginning of the Civil War till its close
some rates were raised almost every month with little scrutiny or
debate. The average _ad valorem_ rate jumped from 19 per cent on
dutiable in 1861 (under the law of 1857) to an average of 35 per cent
in the three years, 1862-1865.

The most important tariff acts of the war were those of 1862 and 1864
by which large increases were made on many articles. These tariff
acts were passed in connection with far-reaching and burdensome
applications of internal revenue taxes on many kinds of manufactures.
The tariff rates were primarily intended to offset these taxes, "to
impose an additional duty on imports equal to the tax which had been
put on the domestic articles," as was said by the sponsors of the
bill. These rates were similar in purpose to compensatory rates, and
in many cases they were more than sufficient to offset the internal
taxes. Under the last of these acts the duties collected in the six
years from 1865 to 1870 averaged nearly 48 per cent on dutiable and
nearly 44 per cent on free and dutiable.

The remarkable fact was that soon after the war the internal revenue
taxes began to be repealed one after another, and by 1872 nearly
all those bearing upon general manufactures (apart from cigars and
alcoholic beverages) were gone. The tariff, however, remained almost
unaltered. This repeal of internal revenue taxation had the same
"protective" effect as raising the tariff rates by so much. As if
this were not enough for the protected interests, in 1867 the duty on
woolens was further raised and in 1870 numerous other increases were
made in the duties having a protective character. Some reductions were
made, but these were almost all on articles of a distinctly "revenue"
character such as tea, coffee, sugar, molasses, spices, wines.
Revenues were superabundant for current expenses of government, and
altho there was a large national debt, hardly any of it was redeemable
at the time. There was therefore need to reduce taxation, but the
attention of the consuming and tax-paying public was distracted by the
somewhat passionate political issues of the day. Besides, the public
had not the technical knowledge or the unified opinion on this subject
to protect itself ag