DiogenesLamp: "first I had to get you to understand that the South was producing the vast majority of the export value to Europe..."
In 1860 raw cotton exports were $191 million, of which half shipped directly from New Orleans, not New York.
Total 1860 exports, including specie ($66 million), were $400 million, making raw cotton <50%.
Manufactured cotton products were another $16 million, but that manufacturing was done in Northern cities, not the South.
Combined, they make cotton about 50%.
Everything else claimed as "Southern product" turned out to be, well, not so much.
We know that because the 1860 Confederate embargo on cotton exports reduced Union cotton exports by 80%, but no other "Southern products" came anywhere close.
Even rice exports fell only 46% and tobacco fell barely 14%.
Clearly claims that those were "Southern products" are gross exaggerations.
Yes, some was produced in Confederate States, but far from all.
That makes claims of 75% Southern pay-for of Federal revenues just more fantasy.
DiogenesLamp: "So 1/4th of the population of the South, was paying 75% of all the revenue.
That 5 million in the South represents 20% of the total population...
But, of course, it wasn't those 5 million, it was their 4 million slaves who made Southern cotton the world's leader, with 80% market share in Britain, for example.
So if we want to whine about poor souls who were over-worked and under-paid, why not start with slaves??
Why cry in our beers over their very wealthy slave-masters?
DiogenesLamp: "The South was paying 12 times the rate per capita of the North."
Actually, it was slavery that paid for Southern luxuries.
DiogenesLamp: "The entire point hinges on recognizing that the South was producing ~75% of the total revenue to the Federal Government, and I think you've admitted to it producing 60%."
I'll fully confess to 50% produced by 4 million slaves who gave their slave-masters the highest average standard of living ever seen at that time.
But you will never convince me those slave-masters were somehow "oppressed" by Federal government.
Where it shipped from has nothing to do with it, as you very well know. New York had virtually total control of the shipping, and they had bought up virtually every cotton contract that came available.
The money came back through New York. It didn't go directly to the people who actually produced the commodity, it went first to New York where they skimmed off a big chunk of the profit.
Actually, it was slavery that paid for Southern luxuries.
And the bulk of Federal Revenues, and 73% of the trade going into New York.
The Fed gov was not induced so much to launch a "moral" war as they were to get that money back and stop any future competition to the Northern money men who had gotten their own agent in control of the government.