The goods brought back were sold on the open market to anybody.
They could be undercut on price though once they had had to pay the high tariffs and they would lose market share."
When you think about it, this somewhat explains why FLT-bird differs from DiogenesLamp on the role of those evil "Northeastern power brokers".
Where DiogenesLamp makes them the focus of his irrational hatreds, FLT-bird doesn't mention them, instead focusing on the alleged fact that Southerners themselves owned the imported goods, and therefore actually paid the tariffs on them.
It's an important distinction since if "New Yorkers" paid all the tariffs, as DiogenesLamp implies, then "what's the beef" from Southerners?
But if, instead, Southern planters themselves owned the goods imported through New York, then they must pay the tariff themselves and so have standing to complain.
Which is more correct?
Well, DiogenesLamp blames "New York power brokers" for virtually everything and that is clearly absurd.
But how much of America's imports in, say, 1860 were owned by the very cotton planters who exported their produce to Europe?
My guess is: very little.
And the reason is, when planters harvested & prepared their crops, they moved the bales to a rail siding or steamboat landing.
Merchants riding the train or steamboat would offer the planter a price for his cotton bales, which the planter may accept or wait for the next train-steamboat in hopes of a better price.
The merchants then move the cotton to port, export it and, on return fill the ships' cargo holds with European products.
So who were these merchants, New Yorkers? Maybe.
Southerners? Maybe
Foreigners? Very likely, representatives of European importers there to make certain their companies get the quantities & qualities needed.
Point is: once the cotton leaves the rail siding or steamboat landing, our Southern planter has his money -- that's his payday -- and ownership transfers to agents representing ultimate customers, agents who then also refill the ships' cargo holds with European imports for their return trip.
So I'm thinking DiogenesLamp stumbled slightly closer to truth on this, though both Lost Causers are distorting actual history for their own propaganda purposes.
Agree? Disagree?
