In the earlier 19th c., Henry Clay had pushed something called the American System: tariffs would shield US industries from foreign competition, promoting their growth. Money from the tariff would then be used to subsidize the building of roads, canals, bridges, etc. These and a central bank would increase commerce. Until the 1830's, that was mostly followed: tariffs were enacted, a Bank of the US created, and what was to be called The National Road was started and rivers were being cleared. With the advent of Andrew Jackson, though, that changed: Jackson went to war against the Bank and was against the expanded role of the government in funding internal improvements ( which could indeed be sources of corruption - Henry Clay introduced one project that would have mostly benefited his own state of Kentucky), and the North and South ( or Whigs and Democrats) would begin to fight over the tariff. The North liked the tariff protection of its industry. With a lower population, US workers cost more than their counterparts in England and Europe, and so the North wanted to shield the country from cheaper imported goods. The South , however, had little industry, was an exporter of cotton ( a very profitable export) , and naturally wondered why boats carrying cotton to English mills couldn't be sent back with cheaper English merchandise. As the tariff was typically around 25-30%, the South could justifiably say it was sending money to the North.

It was not a question of Northern tyranny, however. Until the Civil War, the Democrats and Whigs would fight over the height of the tariff wall, and it would rise and fall, depending on who was in power. It was negotiable. Also prominent in the secession document is the more important non-negotiable grievance, the existence of two different sets of laws in the same country, one permitting slavery and one not. It's Southern anger at having its slave-based agriculture shut out of some of the western territories and Northern balking at enforcing Southern slave-holders' rights to have their slaves in the North, that would push the South into secession.

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