In the editorial on page 4 Harper's notices that US specie exports remain strong (they were averaging over $60 million per year) thanks to California gold and Nevada silver.
These not only balanced out our trade deficit of nearly $40 million per year, but produced a nice financial surplus.
That surplus, Harper's self-admittedly fantasizes, could in time move the world's financial capital from London to New York!
In it's editorial Harper's barely mentions cotton, says nothing about potential threats to "money flows from Europe" nor even a peep about "Northeastern power brokers".
No, none of that is on Harper's radar screen in May of 1860.
But, never fear, Harper's is on the case, and has dug deep to find the real source of America's trade deficit problems -- those dastardly globalists who steadfastly refuse to "put America first", and are driving our financial future into the ground.
Who are these terrible people, you may well ask?
Well, never fear, Harper's is unafraid of the truth, even the most politically incorrect unbearable truths of all, and so, here you'll see they spill the beans:
The worst of the worst profligate international spenders are... (wait for it...), yes, women, especially the wives & daughters of successful businessmen.
Here Harper's reveals the crux of the problem: women compete with each other to insure that each one has just as much fancy foreign stuff as her friends & relations.
Is there a solution?
Maybe, first Harper's hopes the gold & silver flows from California & Nevada will continue & grow, but then it warns all those pretty young women that their fancy foreign dresses will actually drive away worthy young men, and so their spending could lead to the worst possible fait -- worse that war or pandemic -- they could end up as old maids!
There, problem solved, right?
;-)