New York did not pay the tariff. Federal agents at the port simply collected it. My post was a response to Williams’ untrue and idiotic claim that southern ports collected 75% of tariffs. Utterly untrue. They collected well under 10%.
Does it bother you at all that what he said is untrue?
Most of what was imported thru NY was distributed to the rest of the country. The final purchaser actually paid the tariff, albeit indirectly, thru a higher price.
The increase in price was exactly the same whether in south or north.
What Walter was probably thinking about in his 75% number was the value of exports. For which the South did provide something along that percentage, mostly cotton.
But there is a huge gap between value of untaxed exports and amount of tariffs on imports.
There is a form of fallacy in which something minor is seized upon in order to misdirect attention from the larger point. That it wasn't Southern points that collected it may be an error, but it isn't consequential to the salient point.
Who was paying the tariffs?
Does it bother you at all that what he said is untrue?
If it is significant, and factually untrue, then yes, it bothers me. If it is a quibble, and factually untrue, it bothers me that people will attempt to use a minor mistake to derail the larger point. That is more deceitful than just making a minor mistake. That is more objectionable.
Most of what was imported thru NY was distributed to the rest of the country. The final purchaser actually paid the tariff, albeit indirectly, thru a higher price.
And there it is. So why bring up how much tariff money was collected by New York? Isn't that irrelevant to the bigger question? Who pays the cost of these Tarrifs? Out of who's pocket is coming the money to finance the FedGov?
The increase in price was exactly the same whether in south or north.
Which also ignores the larger point. Increases in import tariffs for people who don't import much doesn't constitute much of a burden on them compared to people who do. Does it?
You can raise my Luxury taxes to 100% for all I care, because I do not buy Luxury Items. Your point deliberately ignores the differences between on whom the burden falls, and on whom it does not.
What Walter was probably thinking about in his 75% number was the value of exports. For which the South did provide something along that percentage, mostly cotton.
But there is a huge gap between value of untaxed exports and amount of tariffs on imports.
One would presume that if Europeans were paying for exports with currency other than specie, then European products would have to be sold to buy back the European currency.
This would seem to me to make the necessity of balancing the trade deficits on the heads of the people collecting most of the European money in exchange for their products, i.e. the Southern States.
In other words, Imports have a corresponding relationship to exports, n'est pas?
This link from iowamark's post #25 above, shows that total 1860 US exports were $400 million.
Of that, this link shows total cotton exports were less than $200 million, meaning cotton in 1860 accounted for less than 50% of all US exports.
But the numbers also tell us that Southern US cotton accounted for 75% of all cotton produced worldwide, which was the key fact behind the Confederacy's "King Cotton" strategy.
And this link tells us about 40% of cotton shipped from New Orleans -- with 85% of that going to such European countries as Britain & France, just 15% to Northern US manufacturers.
Bottom line: in 1860 Deep South and Upper South whites totaled about 5.5 million or 20% of all US whites.
Yes, on average they were somewhat more prosperous than their northern cousins, and tens of thousands of plantation owners were very prosperous indeed.
So they could well account for a disproportionate share of imports -- perhaps 25% in total -- but there is no way they could be the purchasers of a majority, much less 75%, of US import duties.