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The second face of hegemony: Britain's repeal of the Corn Laws and the American Walker Tariff of 1846

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Scott C. James  and
David A. Lake
Scott C. James
Affiliation:
An earlier draft of this article was presented to the Conference Group on Political Economy, 2–6 September 1987, in Chicago. The authors thank David D'Lugo, Jeffry Frieden, Wendy Lake, Vincent Mahler, Karen Orren, Robert Pahre, Ronald Rogowski, Cheryl Schonhardt, Lars Skalnes, and Arthur Stein for helpful comments.
David A. Lake
Affiliation:
An earlier draft of this article was presented to the Conference Group on Political Economy, 2–6 September 1987, in Chicago. The authors thank David D'Lugo, Jeffry Frieden, Wendy Lake, Vincent Mahler, Karen Orren, Robert Pahre, Ronald Rogowski, Cheryl Schonhardt, Lars Skalnes, and Arthur Stein for helpful comments.
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Extract

One challenge facing hegemonic stability theory is to specify the processes by whichhegemonic countries construct and maintain a liberal international economic order. Earlier studies have focused on direct coercion or ideological manipulation by the hegemon as a principal technique for manipulating the trade policies of other countries. This article explores a different “face” of hegemony. Specifically, we contend that by altering relative prices through the exercise of their international market power, hegemonic leaders influence the trade policy preferences of their foreign trading partners. We examine this argument in the case of the American Walker Tariff of 1846. American tariff liberalization was intimately related to Britain's repeal of its Corn Laws. In the antebellum United States, Northern protectionist and Southern free trade proclivities were fixed; Western grain growers held the balance of power. By allowing access to its lucrative grain market, Britain altered the economic and political incentives of Western agriculturalists and facilitated the emergence of the free trade coalition essential to the passage of the Walker Tariff.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , Winter 1989 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1989

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References

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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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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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