The Death of the American Shipyard
In an 1873 speech, Congressman Alexander Mitchell argued that excessive taxation and protectionist tariffs were systematically destroying the American shipping industry, forcing once-prosperous shipbuilders into obsolescence.
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Mr. Mitchell said: The question of how best to revive the ship-building interests and carrying trade of the United States is one the correct solution of which will affect in a great degree both the material interests of our people and the standing and importance of this nation. It would be difficult to overestimate the beneficial effects of commerce, not only as a source of national wealth, but as giving fresh life to industry and invention. In the beginning of the present century, everything was favorable to the prosperity of our shipping interests. By far the most prosperous era was from 1850 to 1860, during which time our shipping increased about two million tons. Those proud tokens of our greatness were not placed on the ocean by Government subsidies, but by the enterprise and skill of a free and untrammeled industry. In those bright days there was no whining about being unable to compete with the pauper labor of Europe. In 1861, just when new improvements were being commenced, and iron was beginning to displace wood, Congress imposed such exorbitant taxes on all the material needed for building a ship that that noble industry was crushed beneath the load. Tens of thousands of men employed in the yards and marine engine works were driven to other occupations. One builder said that in 1867 he built a vessel which cost $136,000, of which $25,000 was paid for taxes in various forms. If not the rebel pirates, if not the change from wood to iron were the causes of the destruction of this industry, let us see if we can discover what did destroy our ship-building. It was over-taxation. Let us remove the load of taxation which Congress has imposed. There seems to be no plan so simple as to greatly reduce or wholly remove the high imposts on all materials which may be used in shipbuilding.
“Those proud tokens of our greatness were not placed on the ocean by Government subsidies, but by the enterprise and skill of a free and untrammeled industry.”
Mitchell's 1873 critique of how federal tax policy and trade tariffs decimated domestic manufacturing echoes today's debates about industrial policy and the shifting tides of global commerce in Pacific Northwest maritime hubs. Just as 19th-century shipbuilders struggled against the 'remorseless hand of ill-judged taxation,' modern labor and trade advocates continue to argue over how policy can either sustain or starve local industry.
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