The Tariff of Abominations was a protective tariff passed by the United States Congress in 1828.

The goal of the tariff was to drive up the prices of European goods to prevent them from competing with northern industry. The system of tariffs was triggered after end of the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars, when a recession in Europe led British manufacturers to offer to sell goods in America at prices American manufacturers often could not match.

The first protective tariff was passed by Congress in 1816, and was increased in 1824, and again in 1828 by the Tariff of Abominations, so called by southern opponents. President John Quincy Adams signed the tariff, although he realized it would be used to discredit him politically. In the 1828 election, Andrew Jackson defeated Adams.

John C. Calhoun was Jackson's vice president at the time. He was a South Carolinian, and thus strongly against the tariff. Faced with a reduced market for goods, the British reduced their imports of cotton, which hurt the South. Thus, not only did the tariff force the South to buy manufactured goods at a higher price, but they also faced a reduced income from sales of raw materials. From this Calhoun was able to devise the concept of nullification, which was subsequently deemed unconstitutional.