First, how do you calculate that three quarters of tariffs were paid by Southerners when no such stats exist. I know it’s intertwined with exports and specie and things like this but if you clarify your reasoning then I can avoid critiquing an argument your’re not making. That’s fair of me, don’t you agree?
Second, how much would you estimate that investment in new warehouses, ships and trains, as well as continuous operating costs of the same, plus additional insurance, unremembursed losses, commissions, etc. that Northerners carried before 1861 would cut into that 40% off the gross that Southern financial interests hoped to reap from cutting out the middleman?
Imports are payment for exports. Is that such a hard concept to grasp? They must be roughly equal over time. There will be slight variation from year to year, but so long as a trade deficit does not occur, the imports will roughly equal the exports. Close enough anyway.
Second, how much would you estimate that investment in new warehouses, ships and trains, as well as continuous operating costs of the same, plus additional insurance, unremembursed losses, commissions, etc. that Northerners carried before 1861 would cut into that 40% off the gross that Southern financial interests hoped to reap from cutting out the middleman?
There must be profit in those industries, else New York wouldn't have had such industries. With the South creating it's own versions of those industries, that profit would have been made by them. With an additional 40% in revenue pumping through their economy, (plus eliminating the costs of the US Federal Tariffs) they would have been able to finance their own startup costs.
New York was very much aware of the threat.
The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over....If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....if the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North. We now see whither our tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. WE WERE DIVIDED AND CONFUSED UNTIL OUR POCKETS WERE TOUCHED."
New York Times March 30, 1861
Southern independence was a horrific financial threat to the Northern States that had built their industries on the belief that they would be handling most of the trade from Europe.
But they would have you believe it was a moral issue that prompted them to invade.