And who made the exchange? And why does it matter what form the European payment for their products was in? It was still their European money that must be used to buy the European products imported into the Nation.
The foreign money was in New York banks and available to buy imports.
Of course it was, and who would be loath for this economic activity to move elsewhere?
You are trying to play some "hocus pocus" by invoking middlemen to cloud the origin and ultimate disposition or the money, but when you summarize the whole thing, European imports were being paid for by Southern produced wealth.
The products bought by Northerners from Europe were bought using money they had gotten from Southerners through intrastate trade that was deliberately pumped up by Washington's Protectionist policies.
I remember my trip to Europe. It was disappointing. The slaves didn't pick enough cotton to get me a room at the Ritz so I had to settle for some fleabag motel by the airport.
I haven't traveled overseas since. Tell me, when you change your dollars into foreign currency does the bank teller always remind you that the pounds, francs, marks, and pesetas really belong to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs?
Money is fungible. Money circulates. Money doesn't remember who supposedly got it across the ocean, especially since it may have already made several other trips across national borders. Please, take a class in economics or at least talk to an economist ASAP.
The products bought by Northerners from Europe were bought using money they had gotten from Southerners through intrastate trade that was deliberately pumped up by Washington's Protectionist policies.
Hmmm ... Mr. Globalist ... so domestic trade is somehow illegitimate in a way that supplying foreign manufacturers with raw materials isn't? So American production is always inferior or dishonest in a way that British production isn't? Interesting ideas from an advocate for keeping American a dependent colony of foreign powers.