[marktwain]

Or, is it your contention the South just sent wealth overseas year after year and never expected anything in return?

So, is it your contention the South did not get paid for the cotton and other goods they exported?

Why would sellers of southern cotton sell it without being paid for it?

[jeffersondem]

“Why would sellers of southern cotton sell it without being paid for it?”

They wouldn’t. Southerners repatriated their wealth from overseas, mostly in the form of imports.

It was the confiscatory rate of taxation on imports that caused a problem.