Even delaying industrialization would have a big effect though. If the US was industrialized at 1850 levels in 1880, they would still be "industrialized" but they would be significantly behind.
The US early industrialization was boosted significantly by high tariffs. From 1792 to 1860, the percentage of the federal budget attained from tariffs hovered at 80-95%, and did not drop below 30% until 1916. This isn't the actual tariff rate, but the amount of the federal revenue coming from tariffs.
The actual tariff rates themselves were on average, 20-50% of the total value of imports until 1910. High tariffs in the 18th and 19th centuries allowed "infant industries" to develop in the United States without competing with the prices of British industrial goods which were much cheaper at the time.
If tariffs on manufactured goods were much lower especially in the north and it was cheaper to import British manufactured goods, it really could have delayed US industrialization; by how much, I'm not sure, but it would certainly have a significant effect.
![]()
Sorry; I was too quick and didn't bother reading your second sentence.That would prevent the US from existing.
What would have delayed or prevented industrialization in the US for most of the 19th century? Slowing industrial growth to that of the Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, or lower.
What if the Whiskey Rebellion succeeds or at least gains more ground before being crushed?
Would that do anything?
Yes, the infant industry argument has been debated over the years and politicized. I am not talking about the modern day, or even the latter part of the 20th century, only about the early United States in which we have some pretty strong evidence that those policies worked in a historical sense. Many historians publishing papers up to this day, continue to establish a causal relationship between the infant industry protections suggested in the time of Alexander Hamilton, and U.S. industrial growth during the period it first became a world power.A lower tariff isn't likely to make a dramatic difference. There's no clear relationship between periods of lower rates and speed of industrial development in the US. The infant industries argument might just be wrong.
This sounds as flawed as "Protestant work ethic" but in the other direction. Any actual historical sources for this?In OTL, American industrialisation needed cheap labour to grow, but it ran into a big problem. Native-born white American males hated the idea of working for someone else, ie for wages. They thought it was demeaning, degrading and insecure. They might take such employment in dire straits, but they would jump out of it at short notice if they found any alternative.
Employers of native-born white American males noted that their labour was horrible, being prone to showing up to work late, drunk or not at all, quitting at short or no notice, and going on strike for higher wages.
For the simple fact was that native-born white Americans did have alternatives to working for others. They could strike out west and farm for themselves, becoming independent that way. Or if they stayed in the cities, they could become self-employed artisans or professionals. Good for their pride, but bad for early industrialisation.
I'm surprised you find this controversial; it's hardly disputed that cheaper female and immigrant labour helped to kick-start American industrialisation (and slave labour, for what industrialisation was present in the South). See here and here for a couple of handy online references for how female labour was cheaper than male labour. Robert Starobin in Industrial Slavery in the Old South set out a variety of calculations of how slave labour was cheaper than free labour in slaveholding states. For the role of immigrants being drivers for early urban growth and being willing to work for lower wages than native-born Americans, see Hirschman and Mogford's study of the role of immigrants in American industrialisation, available here (particularly section 2.2 which discusses how immigrants contributed to the size of urban agglomerations by 1850 and in accepting lower wages).This sounds as flawed as "Protestant work ethic" but in the other direction. Any actual historical sources for this?
Yes, the infant industry argument has been debated over the years and politicized. I am not talking about the modern day, or even the latter part of the 20th century, only about the early United States in which we have some pretty strong evidence that those policies worked in a historical sense. Many historians publishing papers up to this day, continue to establish a causal relationship between the infant industry protections suggested in the time of Alexander Hamilton, and U.S. industrial growth during the period it first became a world power.
Hamilton die early, no First Bank of United States, federal government believe regulation of banking is outside it purview, frequent economic crash and boom, with gold and silver only trusted currency, and credit become non-available ?