Question

Describe the debate pertaining to tariffs during the Gilded Age

Answer 1

The debate during the Gilded Age was between "free-traders" and "protectionists". Generally, people in agriculture prefferred lower tariffs, because it enabled them to more easily export their agricultural products, which there was a surplus of in the US, and provided competition for industrial products, which would keep prices low. 

For the opposite reason, people in more industrial areas of the country wanted higher tariffs, or a more protectionist policy, so that the manufacturing sector could continue to develop, and they wouldn't have to compete with foreign manufactured goods.