I'll see if I can make up for lost time.
DiogenesLamp: "BroJoeK posted a link to all the numbers some years ago.
He tried to argue the North was buying the vast bulk of everything because they had gold.
His numbers did not actually reflect that claim.
He tried to cherry pick his data to make it look like that was what was happening, but at the time I went through the work of unraveling all the misdirection and I showed that this wasn't what was happening at all.
You have to look at all the years to figure out what role specie played in the exchange."
Sadly, DiogenesLamp's memory is as defective as are his powers of logical thinking.
Further, like all Democrats, DiogenesLamp reverses reality by accusing others of his own bad behavior.
DiogenesLamp: "The South produced 72% of the export value.
The North produced 28% of the export value.
Assuming balanced trade, which is the norm, this would mean that the South should have been able to purchase 72% of the total value of imports, and the North should have been able to purchase 28% of the imports."
Here is the truth of it:
- DL's 72% comes from an 1862 US Treasury report which broke down all US exports by region -- "Western Products", "Southern Products" and "Eastern Manufacturers.
- This report shows "Southern Product" exports as $229,031,626 which is 72% of "Total goods and produce" of $378,189,274.
For DiogenesLamp, that is "case closed", no further inquiry is necessary, or will be tolerated, for Lost Cause narrative purposes.
- But in reality, there are numerous issues with this 1862 US Treasury report, beginning with the fact that ~10% of items listed as "Southern Products" were actually produced in Union states including:
- Clover seed (all)
- Brown sugar (all imported)
- Hops (all)
- Tobacco (80% Union, 20% Confederate)
- Manufactured cotton products (50% Union value added)
- Combined, these reduce "Southern Products" exports from $229,031,626 to $207,594,794 and the overall percentage of "Southern Products" from 72% to 66%.
But that's just for starters. - The second item DiogenesLamp mentioned: California gold and Nevada Silver.
Prior to 1850, the US imported more gold & silver than exported, but after 1850, the US began exporting massive quantities of specie, over $500,000,000 worth by 1860.
This gold & silver was used to pay for otherwise imbalanced US imports over exports. - When US California-Colorado gold & Nevada silver exports are included, then Confederate state 1860 exports of $207,594,794 shrink from 66% of the total to 55%.
But we're not finished: - Revised numbers from a 1960 study corrected errors and missing data from the original 1862 Treasury report, putting total US 1860 exports $400,122,000.
This further reduces the total of 1860 Confederate state exports to 52% of total 1860 US exports.
But 52% is gross exports on which zero tariffs were paid -- only imports paid tariffs.
So, who purchased the imports which paid tariffs that funded Federal government?
The numbers couldn't be clearer: only 6% of all US tariffs were paid in Southern ports, and of those all but 1% was paid in one port: New Orleans.
And the importance of New Orleans is that it was (&is) less a Southern Port than a national port for the Mississippi River basin, which then covered some 40% of US territory and of which 80% was in Union states.
IOW, imports to New Orleans (as contrasted with, say, Charleston, SC) were paid for mostly by Union state customers.
Bottom line: virtually zero import tariffs were paid directly by Southerners.
So, what do our Lost Causers say about that?
Oh well, they say, it doesn't matter who paid the tariffs, what matters is that Southern products produced export earnings (52%) necessary to buy imports in the first place.
Therefore, "Southern Products" "paid for" Federal government.
At this point, do we need to remember that 95% of "Southern Product" exports were not produced by Southerners, not even by American citizens.
They were produced by African slaves, and slavery was only possible because of Constitutional protections such as Fugitive Slave Laws and 3/5 proportional representation.
Without such Federal protections, slavery would have long since disappeared in the South, and King Cotton would have been strangled as a baby in his cradle decades before 1860.
More important, the real contribution of Confederate states to the US GDP in 1860 was ~15%, from roughly 20% of the US white population.
So, any suggestions that those 20% of US whites would have purchased indirectly 15% of US imports is 100% reasonable.
Any higher number is just Lost Cause propaganda.
x #76: "...Southerners sold cotton to Europe.
The Southerners used the money to buy things from the North and to invest in Northern banks, industries, and railroads.
The Northerners used that money — and the money they got from exports of gold, timber, and grain — to buy things from Europe.
It’s at that stage that the Federal taxes were imposed and collected, not on the early activities."
Exactly right.
Finally, there's another major factor that nobody has ever mentioned here: mainly British, but also other foreign investments in the US economy through 1860 totaled circa $500 million, or ~10% of total US GDP.
This ~$500 million (circa $3 trillion in today's values) absolutely fueled American prosperity and allowed for imports well beyond what product exports alone supported -- in 1860 that, along with specie, was 25% more.
Bottom line: in 1861, when 71% of "Southern Products" disappeared from US export totals, total US exports fell only 35%, suggesting "Southern Products" made up ~50% of US exports.
By 1864 US total exports had returned to 1860 levels without significant contributions from Confederate state products.
So, Confederate state economies were certainly important to the US total -- they were 20% of the white population, 15% of GDP, ~25% of non-slave asset values, but the Southern economy was nowhere near generating 72% of exports, as claimed by DiogenesLamp and other Lost Cause apologists.