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Evidence is not really necessary in arguing with you because I have already been through the experience of you and others rejecting any evidence that doesn't suit what you wish to believe.

The evidence is that in the fiscal year ending July 1864 the U.S. government collected $102,315,153 in revenue from customs. The claim on your part is that without the South the U.S. would not be able to import almost anything. Even allowing for inflation and what have you, that is several times higher than in 1861. When asked for your explanation you said that Lincoln cooked the books. Not at all surprising.

The evidence is that in the fiscal year ending July 1864 the U.S. government collected $102,315,153 in revenue from customs.

Obama's inflation was 3%. See how that works? Real everyday inflation which I personally witnessed was running 40-50%. Everything I buy nearly doubled in some cases and more than doubled in other cases.

So what good does it do to compare numbers based on one system to numbers based on another? Not much. There is so much slop in the means of calculating value here that it would take a great deal of effort just to establish some factual equivalence between the numbers of 1860 and the numbers of 1864. I have seen others tackle this problem, and I simply don't see the point because you won't understand or respect the results when they are produced.

You want to believe what you want to believe.

When asked for your explanation you said that Lincoln cooked the books.

That is your "interpretation" of what I said. Economic conditions changed greatly as a result of the things Lincoln did, but Lincoln did not personally "cook the books." He created conditions in which the money, value and trade numbers from 1864 cannot be compared accurately on a one to one bases with the numbers from 1860.

Others have written quite detailed messages on the economic changes produced by Lincoln's war, and they have shown that the later numbers are created by a combination of inflation, use of specie instead of trade, heavy borrowing, and various other artificial means of government market manipulation.

I don't want to suss out where these numbers come from because they aren't relevant to the straightforward numbers which were produced before the war, and without all the government driven market distortion.