This paper explores American tariff politics and the embrace of protectionism within the Ohio Valley in the two decades following the War of 1812. During these years, residents of the western states navigated the emergence of steam transportation, a growing number of state-chartered banks, and intense population growth. This fueled an economic boom that went bust during the Panic of 1819. Western farmers, merchants, and manufacturers blamed harmful patterns of trade for this economic crisis, which bolstered a distinct regional identity that embraced a properly constructed restrictive tariff as a “western” measure. Consequently, the decade of the 1820s featured the most sustained period of conflict over the tariff issue in the antebellum era. This article examines western participation in conflicts over commerce and roots the political economy of trade policy in changing economic conditions that inspired distinct northern, southern, and western perspectives on trade and economic development. I conclude that both protectionist claims to economic nationalism and free trade embrace of international exchange overlook the individual assessments of local and regional markets that set the terms on which participants in the tariff debates of the early republic imagined future development.

本文探讨了 1812 年战争后的二十年里美国的关税政治和俄亥俄河谷对保护主义的拥护。在这些年里，西部各州的居民经历了蒸汽运输的出现、越来越多的国家特许银行、和人口的急剧增长。这助长了经济繁荣，但在 1819 年的恐慌期间崩溃了。西方农民、商人和制造商将这场经济危机归咎于有害的贸易模式，这种模式强化了一种独特的地区特征，将适当构建的限制性关税视为“西方”措施。因此，1820年代是战前关税问题冲突最持续的时期。本文考察了西方对商业冲突的参与，并将贸易政策的政治经济学根源于不断变化的经济条件，这激发了北方、南方和西方对贸易和经济发展的不同观点。我的结论是，经济民族主义的保护主义主张和国际交流的自由贸易拥抱都忽视了对当地和区域市场的个人评估，这些评估为共和国早期关税辩论的参与者设想未来发展设定了条件。