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The best I can tell is that the government didn't levy southern cotton, but did put a tariff on foreign cotton and that caused a trade war with foreign nations that hurt the south because then foreign countries were putting higher tariffs on southern cotton.

In the 1850s almost all raw cotton was produced in the American South. There was no need or point in putting a protective tariff on cotton fiber.

There were tariffs, protective and otherwise, on finished cotton material imported from other countries.

Any trade war between US, UK etc. would have been over cotton cloth, not raw cotton, which was what the South exported. Northern mill owners and workers might have been affected, the South would not have been.

Southern apologists seldom understand the tariff issue. There never were any tariffs on exports, before or after the WBTS. They are prohibited by the Constitution.

During the War of 1812, the USA was severely impacted in its economy and war effort by a lack of industry. British blockade stopped imports and caused huge problems.

After the war, protective tariffs were put in place to ensure that in future wars the US wouldn't have essential products cut off. The leader in this push was Henry Clay, a southerner and large slaveowner.

Over the course of time, tariff rates went up and down, peaking in the 1830s and generally declining thereafter. In 1860 they were about as low as they had been since the War of 1812.

Tariffs were paid only on imports, at the port of entry. An Iowa farmer or a Pennsylvania miner paid (indirectly) exactly the same tax as a Georgia planter or a Texas cattleman, on tariffed items.

Protective tariffs on some items gave US-made products an advantage over imports. Southerners had exactly the same opportunities to take advantage of this protection as northerners, but they mostly chose not to engage in the industries that would have allowed them to do so.

So even though individual southerners paid exactly the same taxes and prices on protected goods as northerners, those factory owners and workers who benefited from the protection were found disproportionately in the North.

IOW, the protective tariff was not a transfer of wealth from South to North, it was from consumers throughout the nation to producers in the protected industries. Most of them happened to be in the North.