In the fiscal year 1860, U.S.tariff income was $53,188,000 (on $286,000,000 worth of imports), not $60.
I'll accept that. The $60 million was from past estimates I've seen bandied about.
That is a false conclusion, in obvious error, and intentionally misleading. Import/Export value does not give consumption data.
That figure came from another thread here which gave a value for Southern imports some 10 times greater than Northern imports. Also if you read the works of Charles Adams, Thomas DiLorenzo, the Kennedy Brothers, and other great southron thinkers, they all claim that the South accounted for anywhere from 80% to over 90% of all tariff revenue. If total revenue was $53 million then the North only generated between $5 million and $10 million of that.
The source of that quote may be shown, but the US Treasury data for 1863 shows tariff income was $64 million (on 195,000,000 of imported goods).
In his December 6, 1864 annual message to Congress, Lincoln gave the total revenue collected from customs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864. And in checking, I discovered that the figure he quoted was $102,316,152.99 and not the $110 million I stated earler. Sorry for the mistake, but still a substantial increase over 1860, wouldn't you agree?
Since very little precious metals were being shipped out of the United States to pay for imported goods, the exports were the "currency" being used to buy foreign goods to be imported. Depending on the year, this "currency" (cotton, tobacco, hemp, foodstuffs) constituted 75-80% of the value of exports.
If true then what was the United States exporting in FY 1864? The source of its exports in prior years was cut off. Any cotton, tobacco, or hemp exported was a trickle of pre-rebellion years. If exports were cut, perhaps by 75-80%, but imports were way up then how were those imports paid for? And if they could be paid for in gold, silver, letters of credit, or what have you then doesn't the same apply to 1860 as well?
The data makes the above appear for what it is...BS.
No, it is valid if you accept the original premise which was that the South accounted for the overwhelming majority of tariff income. If one concludes, from your post and from rustbuckets, that the reverse was true and that the bulk of the tariff revenue did not come from the south, and add in the fact that the connection between imports and exports seem to be far less than some would have us believe, then it's easy to account for the difference in revenue collections between 1860 and 1864 without the Southern import or export market. That was the whole point from the beginning.