OK. Let’s us be exceptionally generous of spirit and assume Williams was trying to say the South paid 75% of the tariffs as the ultimate consumers.
Do you have any evidence for this remarkable assertion?
The Union states contained about 21M free people, the CSA states roughly 6M free people. Slaves didn’t consume much of anything, more or less by definition.
Do you have a reason to believe the consumption of imported goods differed between the sections? That the South consumed vastly more than the 22% proportionate to their share of the population? Or that the eventual Union states consumed, and therefore paid the tariffs on, much less than the 78% proportionate to their population?
I have enough evidence to consider it a credible plausibility. That the South was exporting Cotton is pretty much understood by everyone. What was New York importing? That alone is sufficient reason to suspect that the South was paying for most of the government.
That the South consumed vastly more than the 22% proportionate to their share of the population?
As I pointed out in my previous message, that European money has got to be spent somehow. It must be balanced by European goods somehow.
We know the South was getting a good chunk of it for Cotton, Tobacco and Sugar. What was the North selling to Europe?
Or that the eventual Union states consumed, and therefore paid the tariffs on, much less than the 78% proportionate to their population?
If the first bit be true, than this second bit would seemingly follow, or at least be not far off.