Tariff Wars and the Politics of Jacksonian America (New Perspectives on Jacksonian America) Paperback – August 15, 2017 by William K. Bolt (Vanderbilt University Press)

William K. Bolt has written the fullest account of the antebellum tariff wars since Edward Stanwood's two volume history on the tariff in the nineteenth century, which was published in 1903. The book--the inaugural volume in Vanderbilt University Press's New Perspectives on Jacksonian America series--is a lively account of the legislative process that resulted in the passage of tariffs eight times between the end of the War of 1812 and the Civil War. As Bolt explains so well, not all tariffs were created equal. His discussion of the Walker Tariff, which President James K. Polk signed into law in 1846 is especially well done. I once had a professor who proclaimed that he would spend almost no time on the tariff in his U.S. history survey course because he found the issue boring in the extreme. Bolt's account demonstrates otherwise, and he is successful at fully immersing the tariff issue into the larger context of Jacksonian politics. And while a thorough examination of what brought on the American Civil War is beyond the scope of this book, Bolt does make clear that the tariff did not prompt southern secession.

Bolt also makes the case that the tariff issue--because so many people found it relevant to their everyday lives--brought more and more people into the political process, whether through lobbying, writing memorials to Congress, or organizing mass meetings to either support or oppose the tariff. This view reflects the recent historiography of the Jacksonian period, as scholars such as Daniel Peart have tied the tariff to the growth of American democracy. While I like Bolt's book very much, I found myself wanting to see more development of this aspect of his argument. He maintains that "[v]oting the wrong way on a tariff could destroy the political prospects of ambitious men" (p. 4). Undoubtedly, this was true. But Bolt's analysis on this point is, for the most part, suggestive rather than fully fleshed out. In fairness, he may not have had the space to really elaborate on this argument. The contribution he has made with this book, however, is clear, and he has given Vanderbilt's series a good start.