Tariffs in American History

John Steele Gordon (Author: An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power)

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered in Washington, D.C., on May 6, 2025, as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series. Sponsored by Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, which is undergoing extensive expansion and renovation, the lecture was delivered in The Heritage Foundation’s Van Andel–Gaby Center.

John Steele Gordon was educated at Millbrook School and Vanderbilt University. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Forbes, National Review, Commentary, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He wrote “The Long View” column for Barron’s and the “Business of America” column for American Heritage, where he served as a contributing editor. He currently writes the “From the Vault” column for the American Bankers Association’s Banking Journal. He is the author of several books, including Hamilton’s Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt, The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power, and An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power.

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via Imprimis, a Hillsdale College publication with more than 6,800,000 readers
May 2025 | VOLUME 54, NUMBER 5 (excerpt)

Tariffs are among the oldest of taxes for the simple reason that they are easy to collect.

Just send in the tax collectors and don’t let the goods being transported move until the duty has been paid.

Being one of the earliest forms of taxation, it is not surprising that tariffs produced one of the earliest forms of tax evasion: smuggling.

In America’s colonial period, the east coast of the United States, with its many rivers and inlets that the small ships of those days could utilize, lent itself to smuggling, and the American colonists evaded British tariffs on a grand scale.

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