Tariff
A tariff is a tax on imports or exports between sovereign states. It is a form of regulation of foreign trade. It is a policy that taxes foreign products to encourage or protect domestic industry. It helps limit trade deficits. The tariff is historically used to protect infant industries and to allow import substitution industrialization.
Tariff of 1789
The import fees "represented a compromise between the advocates of a high protective tariff and those who favored a tariff for revenue only [to maintain the central government]." Charges up to fifty percent were imposed on selected manufactured and agricultural goods, including "steel, ships, cordage, tobacco, salt, indigo [and] cloth." On the majority of items subject to duty, a five percent fee was levied, "ad valorem". Molasses, an indispensable ingredient for Northeastern rum producers, was lowered from 6¢ per gallon to 2.5¢. 
Madison modified the terms of the tariff to balance sectional conflicts but conceded that articles subject to high duties "were pretty generally taxed for the benefit of the manufacturing part of the northern community." He acknowledged the South, the main wealth-producing part of the nation, would inevitably "shoulder a disproportionate share of the financial burden involved in the transforming the United States into a commercial, manufacturing, and maritime power."