During the war, though, the desperate need to raise money to fight the war inspired Republicans like John Sherman to develop a new kind of American tariff that would protect industry. Rather than using tariffs simply to raise revenue that would flow directly to the treasury, the Republicans put tariff walls around virtually all of the nation’s production, agricultural as well as industrial, believing that by supporting the entire economy the government would improve everyone’s standard of living and enable Americans to pay the new taxes Congress had imposed.22
