So you're saying it was cheaper to bring the goods to New York, unload them, pay the tariffs, load them again, and ship them to their customers in the south? All so they could rapidly load goods for export and high-tail it back to Europe? What export goods might those be?
First, the Morrill Tariff was drafted in 1860, and the Southern members of Congress did not have the votes to stop it.
But they did stop it in the Senate in 1860. And could have stopped it again in 1861. And if they knew that they couldn't continue to stop it then why didn't they rebel then? Why wait since the primary cause of the rebellion was there in front of them?
“But they did stop it in the Senate in 1860. And could have stopped it again in 1861.”
Surely you know that each state has two senators, regardless of the population, while the House membership is based upon population. Thus, it is one thing to stop a measure in the Senate, where the balance is more equitable, than it is in the House, where the more populous states (i.e., the Northern states) dominate the chamber. How can you say they could have stopped it in 1861? They had nowhere near the votes in the House to overcome the Northern states’ numerical advantage in 1860, before secession, and they sure as hell didn’t have the votes after secession began.
You said: “So you’re saying it was cheaper to bring the goods to New York, unload them, pay the tariffs, load them again, and ship them to their customers in the south? All so they could rapidly load goods for export and high-tail it back to Europe? What export goods might those be?”
It was more profitable for the shipping companies. Hell, they didn’t care where the cargo ended up, or how it eventually ended up there. They were concerned with delivering the cargo ASAP, loading up on goods for the return voyage, and setting sail. For example, a prime commodity that England desired was lumber, and America was its biggest supplier of lumber.
The Senate could only stop the Morrill Tariff during the first couple of months in 1861 if all senators from the seceded states remained in the Senate. However, once the new Senate was sworn in in March, they could no longer stop the new tariff. As Texas Senator Louis Wigfall said on December 12, 1860 [thanks to former poster GOPcapitalist for the following quote]:
Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not. As to this body, where do we stand? Why, sir, there are now eighteen non-slaveholding States. In a few weeks we shall have the nineteenth, for Kansas will be brought in. Then arithmetic which settles our position is simple and easy. Thirty-eight northern Senators you will have upon this floor. We shall have thirty to your thirty-eight. After the 4th of March, the Senator from California, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Minnesota will be here. That reduces the northern phalanx to thirty-four...There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust. Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President to give the casting vote. Mr. Lincoln can make his own nominations with perfect security that they will be confirmed by this body, even if every slaveholding State should remain in the Union, which, thank God, they will not do.