[marktwain]

Specie is not "trade", trade is "trade", and it was clearly in the South's best interest to get away from Northern laws taxing them at 12 times the per capita taxation of the Northern population.

The above is your claim. It is not convincing to me. Specie can clearly pay for imports. Very little gold or silver was produced in the South.

To claim it is irrelevant is disingenuous. I gave you several examples of ways in which imports can be offset in the balance of payments in other ways than direct exportation of goods. Ways which in fact, they *were* offset.

The only way "balance of payments" arguments make sense, is to look at all the inputs and outgo for the whole nation.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Specie is not "trade", trade is "trade", and it was clearly in the South's best interest to get away from Northern laws taxing them at 12 times the per capita taxation of the Northern population."

marktwain: "The above is your claim.
It is not convincing to me.
Specie can clearly pay for imports.
Very little gold or silver was produced in the South."

Right -- gold and silver ("specie") were financial equivalents of other geological products like oil, copper or iron.
Specie were "Western Products" though most buying and selling happened in New York City, without the physical gold ever changing its location.
In 1860, net US specie exports were $58 million.

According to this source, 1860 exports (including specie) totaled $400 million.
Of that:

1. $191 million was raw cotton = 48%
2. $ 11 million was manufactured cotton products, manufactured in New England, though included as "Southern Products" = 3%.

3. $ 19 million was tobacco produced mainly in the Union states of Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana, though included as "Southern Products" = 5%

4. $ 4 million was turpentine related products, produced mainly in North Carolina = 1%

5. $ 3 million was rice produced mainly in South Carolina = <1%.

6. $ 1 million was every other alleged "Southern Product", including hemp and clover seed.

7. $229 million total of "Southern Products" exported in 1860 = 57% of US exports
   minus $11 million of mfg'd cotton (Northern Products)
   minus 12 million of tobacco produced in Union states

   =$206 million = roughly 52% of all US exports in 1860 were "Southern Products".

So, right off the bat, "Southern Products", meaning exports from Confederate states, amounted to 52% of total US exports, not the ridiculous numbers Southern Democrat propagandists (then and now) threw around.

Finally, even suggestions that "Southern Exports" somehow "paid for" 52% Federal import tariffs are pure nonsense, since over 90% of tariffs were paid at non-Southern ports and then shipped to non-Southern customers such as manufacturers of woolen, cotton, silk and food products.

Bottom line is that the 11 Southern states of the Confederacy totaled to roughly 20% of the US free population, and 20% is probably a fair estimate of their total economic contribution to the US GDP in 1860, including Federal tariff revenues.

Everything else is just Southern Democrat political propaganda weaponized against Doughfaced Northerners in 1860 and against unsuspecting Free Republic posters today.