Tariffs, Immigration, and Economic Insulation: A New View of the U.S. Post–Civil War Era

Immigration of epic proportions is a marker for the years from 1865 to 1910 in US history. More than 22 million foreigners arrived during the period, unencumbered for all practical purposes by official immigration restrictions. When yet-to-be-employeed immigrants stepped off the ships, they embodied streams of yet-to-be-produced goods and services. The present values of those goods and services went unrecorded and untaxed. To history's knowledge, the only example of the present value of immigrants' earnings being recordable as US imports is "immigrant" African slaves. In contrast, the present values of streams of future goods and services implicit in imports of physical capital were recorded, and, where taxable, they were taxed.