[BroJoeK]

SoCal Pubbie: "Southen agriculture was not the totality of exports.
At most it accounted for 60-65%, not three quarters."

Not even that much, see my post here.

In 1861 when Confederate exports were deleted from Union accounting, total US exports fell only 35%, not 50%, not 65% and certainly not 75% to 90% as often claimed.

Yes, cotton exports did fall 80%, but no other "Southern product" came anywhere near that.
Indeed, alleged "Southern products" like rosin, turpentine and hops rose by orders of magnitude from 1860 to 1861.
Clearly they were mislabeled as "Southern products".

SoCal Pubbie: "The New York Times states that ALL American cotton exports, of which only 80% came from the South, were 60% of total exports in 1860."

That depends on how you count & what you include.
This source (pg 605) shows total 1860 US exports of $400 million, including $66 million in specie.
This source shows total 1860 cotton exports as $191 million plus another $16 million in manufactured cotton products.
However, those $16 million should be included in Northern exports and they are not.
So a rough distribution of value added would put total cotton exports around $200 million or 50% of US exports.
Nothing else in the category of "Southern products" comes anywhere close to being as genuinely "Southern" or important to total US exports -- nothing, not tobacco, not rice, not turpentine or hops... only cotton, nothing else.

SoCal Pubbie: "The mayor of New York City even proposed its own secession, but Unionist sympathies overwhelmed that idea.
It was only after the war started thats Northern captains of industry joined ranks with Uncle Sam."

An important point which DiogenesLamp twists into saying that fear of losing their economic base (cotton, etc.) drove "New York elites" into pushing Lincoln towards war.
In historical fact, economics were secondary to the issue of Confederate seizures by force of Federal properties, especially their military assault on Union Fort Sumter.

Which port was more important to cotton, New York or New Orleans?

New York harbor, c.1855:

New Orleans harbor, where half of US cotton shipped:

[SoCal Pubbie]

Chasing down the numbers is a difficult task, as you can find a variety of numbers. Plus how much of the export prices are a function of transport costs and northern markup. Also, import numbers weren’t kept at all.

Of course the whole debate is absurd. These economic excuses arose after the war was over so that Southerners wouldn’t feel so bad about fighting to preserve slavery.

[DiogenesLamp]

In 1861 when Confederate exports were deleted from Union accounting, total US exports fell only 35%, not 50%, not 65% and certainly not 75% to 90% as often claimed.

This is more of that nonsense thinking.

A more accurate statement would be along the lines of "Because we absolutely destroyed what would have been the Southern trade with Europe, and because we borrowed and spent our money into inflationary conditions and also stimulate a war demand economy while likewise killing off a chunk of our population, We got some numbers that look like the above."

None of your crap numbers would have occurred if the South had established direct trade with Europe. You keep acting as though your numbers were based on conditions pre war, and you are ignoring the fact that they would look nothing like that if the pre war conditions had stayed the same, but instead with the South trading directly with Europe.

Yes, the no competition from the South numbers would have looked like that, once you added in the Lincoln caused inflation into the mix. The competition from the South numbers would have looked nothing like that, and they would have all been bad for the North.

[DiogenesLamp]

An important point which DiogenesLamp twists into saying that fear of losing their economic base (cotton, etc.) drove "New York elites" into pushing Lincoln towards war.

That is only one aspect. Not only would New York have lost most of it's trade with Europe, (and it would have had associated damage to it's warehousing, banking, insurance etc. industries.) it would have faced the prospect with competition in the interior of the Country for European products imported through the South to supply everything which could be reached through the Mississippi.

Additionally, the capitalization of industry in the South caused by the recovered profits from their existing export trade, as well as new profits from increased trade through Europe, would have built industries that competed directly with Northern Industries.

I've pointed out to you before a Northern newspaper editorial where they fretted about railroad steel being unloaded in southern ports, and how they would be supplying all the steel rails for expansion of the rail road industry.

Capitalization of Southern industries would have grown the South, and removal of this same capitalization of Northern industries would have hurt the North.

Again, the question becomes "Who is losing the money, and who is gaining the money." No matter how you slice this, if the South was allowed to proceed unmolested, they would have been cutting deep into Northern economic interests in myriad and sundry ways.

I only lightly touch on the various ways in which the South would have been hurting Northern Industry and existing financial interests, and it is partly a result of the complexity of it that makes it difficult for people to grasp the big picture about how the Northern money interests would have been hurt.

Needless to say, the Northern money interests were not stupid, and they could see what a horrible economic threat to them was Southern independence, and that is why they demanded a war to stop it.