[BroJoeK]

SoCal Pubbie: "The imbalance of merchandise bought and sold totaled a deficit of $715.3 million dollars.
In only eleven of those years was there any trade surplus, with only three of those years reporting more than single digit surpluses.
How do you explain that?"

Two items: California gold and Nevada silver.
They balanced everything quite nicely.

But please remember: when I say cotton was 50% of US exports, I'm including specie.
When DiogenesLamp & others say "Southern products" represented (tak your pick) 75% or 80% or 90%, they exclude specie from their calculations and add in a lot more than just cotton.

[DiogenesLamp]

Specie isn't trade, and if you keep spending it, you eventually run out.

But it does bring up a curious question. If the specie is coming from California and Nevada, then why is almost all the import money ending up in New York?

[SoCal Pubbie]

I was referring to Lampie’s need to have imports and exports balance, as part of the proof that Southerners paid the vast majority of the tariffs. Clearly there were more imports than exports throughout the antebellum period. Of course he just blows it off as “roughly equal.”