“Don’t care. Isn’t relevant to the point of what was going on in 1861.”
Talk about dodging. I guess you think those exports just sprang up out of nowhere?
I don't want to talk about them because it's already pretty D@mned hard to keep the conversation on track for what was going on in 1860-1861. Asking "What about X, four years later" is really irrelevant to the decision making process for 1860-1861.
The focus should be on who was going to gain and who was going to lose in 1861, and whether this threat of financial loss or gain was sufficient inducement to trigger a war.
The numbers show that it was. I want to talk about the numbers leading up to 1861. Nothing else changed other than who was going to collect the money. Slavery didn't get worse than it was, there was no possibility of abolishing it in a legal process in the Union, and nothing was going to change except for who was going to get the money.