Can somebody please explain how this works? Tariffs were on imports, not exports!!!
The exporters were also the importers. Exporters contracted with shipping companies which either did not offer one way shipping or if they did, offered it at uneconomical prices. So those exporters needed to find something to fill the holds of the cargo ships on their return voyages. Naturally, they used the money from selling their cash crops to buy manufactured goods to put in the ships’ holds. Those manufactured goods were then to be hit with very steep tariffs once the Morrill Tariff came into effect. Since Southerners produced and owned the cash crops, they also owned the manufactured goods those cash crops had been effectively exchanged for.
So if the Southerners owned the cash crops, how did those damned Yankess in New York make all those profits I’ve heard were skimmed off the top?
So I am to understand that you claim that Southern plantation owners arranged to have their crops exported to England directly, including all shipping arrangements, without the need for third party brokers? That shippers filled their vessels with only one customer’s goods? That shippers could not find other goods from other customers say in England to return profitably? Or carry on to another port in Europe or elsewhere?
I am to take your word for all this?