1. Quote by the Columbus, Ohio Statesman, 7 08 1846.Google Scholar Cited in Silbey, Joel, The Transformation of American Politics, 1840–1860 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 98.Google Scholar

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6. Our discussion of the three faces of hegemony is inspired by but does not necessarily follow the literature on the three faces of power. See Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1960)Google Scholar; Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., “The Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review 56 (12 1962), pp. 947–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crensen, Matthew A., The Un-Politics of Air Pollution: A Study of Non-Decisionmaking in the Cities (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Lukes, Steven, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1977).Google Scholar

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11. This is the central insight of endogenous tariff theory. See Caves, Richard E., “Economic Models of Political Choice: Canada's Tariff Structure,” Canadian Journal of Economics 9 (05 1976), pp. 278–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baack, Bennett D. and Ray, Edward John, “The Political Economy of Tariff Policy: A Case Study of the United States,” Explorations in Economic History 20 (01 1983), pp. 73–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lavergne, Real P., The Political Economy of U.S. Tariffs (New York: Academic Press, 1983).Google Scholar

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13. In this context, E. E. Schattschneider's often-cited observation about the second face of power retains its full force: “All forms of political organization have a bias in favor of the exploitation of some kinds of conflict and the suppression of others because organization is the mobilization of bias. Some issues are organized into politics while others are organized out.” The Semi-Sovereign People, p. 71.

14. See Lake, , Power, Protection, and Free Trade, pp. 29–33.Google Scholar

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16. The same result follows from a specific factors model of trade policymaking. Among others, see Baack and Ray, “The Political Economy of Tariff Policy.”

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21. Ibid., p. 159.

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36. Ibid.

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41. Martin, Thomas P., “Cotton and Wheat in Anglo-American Trade and Politics, 1846 to 1852,” Journal of Southern History 1 (08 1935). p. 295Google Scholar. As an example, a commercial treaty between the United States and the German Zollverein had been concluded in 1844 through the offices of the State Department, which at that time was under the direction of South Carolinian John C. Calhoun. Under the provisions of the proposed treaty, duties on German textiles and other manufactures were to be significantly reduced. In return, the Zollverein agreed to reduce tariffs on U.S. tobacco and lard and to freeze the duty on rice. Unmanufactured cotton was to be admitted on the free list (Laughlin, and Willis, , Reciprocity, pp. 8–9)Google Scholar. The treaty was subsequently rejected in the Whig-dominated Senate by a vote of 26 to 18, ostensibly on the grounds that “‘the Legislature was the department by which commerce should be regulated and laws of revenue passed’: that therefore the State Department had no right to interfere in such regulations.” See Schuyler, Eugene, American Diplomacy and the Furtherance of Commerce (New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1886), p. 434.Google Scholar

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51. This is not intended as a complete explanation of the repeal of the Corn Laws. We emphasize that altering Western trade preferences and the balance of political power in the United States were important motivations for repeal.

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56. Prentice, Archibald, History of the Anti-Corn Law League (London: W. & F.G. Cash, 1853), p. 138Google Scholar. British abolitionists and free traders further recognized the direct effect that discriminations in their country's tariff schedules had on the structure of political power in the United States. In a letter written in 1841 to Joseph Sturge, a Birmingham grain dealer and prominent abolitionist, Richard Cobden observed: “There are more human beings in bonds in North America than in all the rest of the Christian world, and we by our corn laws throw the entire power of the legislature there into the hands of the slaveowners.” Quoted in Richard, Henry, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge (London: Partridge & Bennett, 1864), pp. 277–78.Google Scholar

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58. American Whig protectionists were a main source of the argument that, under normal conditions, Western “foodstuffs could not compete with those of the Black Sea and Baltic regions.” (Whigs dwelt on the contention that the British market was “unimportant and unattractive.”) But Western farmers felt they could compete in British markets with the proper internal improvements (“cheap and rapid transportation”). As it was, “Northern canals and rivers were useless during the winter months due to ice blockage,” and even under optimal conditions rapid shipments of produce were impossible. See Martin, , “Cotton and Wheat in Anglo-American Trade and Politics,” p. 306.Google Scholar

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65. Ibid.

66. Quoted in Ward, J. T., Sir James Graham (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967), p. 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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69. See, among others, McCord, Norman, The Anti-Corn Law League, 1838–1846 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958).Google Scholar

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72. The prospect for the repeal of the Corn Laws was expected to further reinforce the political momentum behind efforts to reduce U.S. tariffs by enlisting the economic self-interest of the railroads. Railroad interests were twofold. First, with repeal, “much of the produce which was formerly shipped by way of Montreal [would] now come over the Western Road to Boston.” It followed that to maximize profitability and avoid “the return of strings of ‘empties’ which ought to be carrying freight” on the return leg of the trip, the complementary extension of markets for manufactured goods was essential. (Indeed, the only Northeastern states voting for the 1846 tariff reductions were those with dominant shipping interests.) Second, railroad extension was critically tied to the availability of iron in larger quantities and at cheaper prices than protected domestic industry could supply. The tariff on railroad iron stemming from the revisions of 1842 added $2,000 per mile to the cost of railroad construction. Consequently, the reduction of duties on iron products was essential if the railroads were to capture the commercial gains likely to result from repeal of the Corn Laws. Thus, when the Corn Laws were repealed and the Walker Tariff was a reality, it was not surprising that Louis McLane—president of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad and American Minister to England during this period of parallel tariff reform—resigned his post in August 1846. Staggered by the potential demand for Western breadstuffs in Britain, he returned home to push for the extension of the B&O line over the Appalachians to the Ohio River. The B&O expected to tap the extensive Western market and play a central role in moving grain between the West and the Eastern seaports. This desire was reproduced in the calculations of other railroad lines, such as the Michigan Central, the New York and Erie, and the Pennsylvania Central. Indeed, railroad mileage tripled between the years 1849 and 1856, with the bulk of the additional track put down “in the West or in lines connecting the East with the West.” The result was a “veritable race to reach the lakes and rim of the Ohio Valley.” See Martin, , “Cotton and Wheat in Anglo-American Trade and Politics,” pp. 307–10.Google Scholar

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74. The final treaty on the issue of the Oregon Territory fixed the boundary at the 49th parallel and gave the British all of Vancouver Island as well as free navigation on the Columbia River “for a term of years.”

75. Wiltse, , John C. Calhoun, Sectionalist, p. 257.Google Scholar

76. Ibid., p. 238.

77. See Silbey, Joel H., The Shrine of Party: Congressional Voting Behavior, 1841–1852 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967)Google Scholar. Also important are Silbey's collection of essays gathered in The Partisan Imperative: The Dynamics of American Politics Before the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

78. In addressing this counterargument, we first sought to identify Democrats from the Western states who had voted on the tariff in both 1842 and 1846 as a means of isolating their votes and highlighting the change in policy preferences. This seemed the most direct means of substantiating our thesis. This strategy proved impossible, however, as congressional turnover in these crucial Western states between the 1842 and 1846 tariff votes was virtually total, with the exception of one Whig who supported high tariffs in both years and one Democrat who voted in neither year.

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81. Ibid., p. 81 and p. 247, fn. 24.

82. Ibid., p. 247, fn. 25.

83. Ibid., pp. 75–76.

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