Contemporaneous with the debate on national surveys for improvements, a spirited debate arose on the tariff. It soon showed an unfortunate tendency to North and South sectional lines, especially when compared with the post-war-tariff debate of eight years before. Protection in those intervening years had begun to assume a sectional aspect, although as yet only in a formative state. The Southern people had begun to realise that their slave labour was not applicable to factories, and that they must depend for their goods upon Europe and upon the Northern States. Under the theory that the consumer pays the duty, the burden was thought to fall equally upon all parts of the country, unless the duty should grow into a discrimination upon one kind of goods or those consumed exclusively in one section. Massachusetts was singular among Northern States, being opposed to this tariff measure of 1824 because of the high duty on canvas and other ship-building materials. Some Southern speakers thought that the duties on cheap dry goods used by their slaves rather discriminated against them. They pointed to the fact that New England manufacturers scarcely needed protective legislation, when the stock in their cotton mills was selling at sixty-five per cent. above par and was paying heavy dividends. This conviction grew steadily among certain Southern States for four years, until a change in the tariff schedule brought one of them to open revolt. A comparison of the votes on the tariff measures of 1816 and 1824 exhibits this sectional tendency. In 1816, a protective tariff in the House gained sixty-three Northern votes to fourteen against it. Eight years later there were eighty-eight votes for a higher tariff and nineteen opposed to it. If it had not been for the duty on canvas, Massachusetts would have viewed the measure favourably and would have made the vote one hundred to seven. The North was evidently beginning to appreciate the value of protection. The Southern members in the House, in 1816, stood less than two to one as opposed to protection. In 1824, they stood nearly four to one against the policy. The South was beginning to see that a tariff benefits the manufacturer of goods more than the producer of raw materials. The Senate shows this sectional bias even more clearly. The reversal of the vote of the Southern senators is particularly noticeable. SENATE VOTES ON THE TARIFF MEASURES 1816 1824 Northern Senators /For........16......19 \Against.....2.......6 Southern Senators /For.........9.......4 \Against.....5......17