While DiLorenzo specifically names only southern planters, wouldn't his arguement be true of anyone producing any sort of fungible product, regardless of whether it was exported or not? The Illinois farmer or the New Hampshire fisherman was no more able to pass along increases in his costs due to tariffs in the local markets than was the southern cotton exporter. He was paid market price regardless. If he consumed imported goods, and paid a tariff, and his neighbor did not then that was just too bad for him. His wheat or fish was no different than his neighbors, and his product demanded no premium over his neighbors. Likewise the Northern laborer. He couldn't demand any more for his work than the guy down the street, regardless of his consumer habits. So DiLorenzo's claim that tariffs his exporters alone makes no sense.
DiLorenzo also ignores the fact that the same tariffs he condemns so loudly also protected those southern exporters. There were tariffs on tobacco products, raw cotton, naval stores and the like. All southern exports. But I guess those were OK, huh?
Producers in perfectly competitive industries are generally price takers, non-seq. What you think yourself to have discovered is nothing new to the economist.
The Illinois farmer or the New Hampshire fisherman was no more able to pass along increases in his costs due to tariffs in the local markets than was the southern cotton exporter.
In the cases where such markets were perfectly competitive, yes. In fact one of the strongest anti-tariff warriors of the 1861 senate, Robert M.T. Hunter of Virginia, gave a lengthy speech on the eve of secession detailing how the Morrill act would also hurt the north's exporters in addition to his own region. That's the nature of protective tariffs - very little good ever comes from them for the entire nation.
While that observation remains true and consistent throughout our history, it does not address the greater intricacies at hand. We know that tariffs harm the nation in general, but does it harm some persons in that nation more than others? The answer is yes. It harms, as has been repeatedly noted, price takers more than those who can pass on their burdens. So where are the price takers then? Well, as a rule of thumb they are normally found in agricultural industries, export industries, and especially in agriculture-for-export industries. So if you are from one of those industries, north or south, chances are you're gonna suffer more than the steel industry robber barons who are among the select few that actually benefit from protection, all at a greater harm to a greater number of others of course. But let's take 1860 to see where the price takers were.
First, we know that almost the entirity of the southern economy was in agriculture and the majority of that in agriculture for export. Thus, using our rule of thumb, they were virtually all in price taker industries. We also know that the south had a disproportionately large advantage over the north in exports for the nation as a whole - some three fourths of them came from the south compared to barely a quarter from the north. While it remains true that price takers existed in the north as well, they were substantially fewer and of substantially less importance to the national economy than their counterparts in the south. Northern fisheries did not make up 75% or 60% or even half of the yankee economy nor even a fifth of the nation's exports - they were but a small fraction. Compare that to a region where virtually all industries are agricultural price takers and one product alone - cotton - makes up somewhere in the two thirds range of the entire nation's exports. So, holding that tariffs hurt ALL price takers north and south, it STILL remains the overwhelming majority of price-taking production in 1860's was southern. From that we arrive at the inescapable reality of the Morrill tariff - it would have disproportionately harmed the southern economy.
Likewise the Northern laborer. He couldn't demand any more for his work than the guy down the street, regardless of his consumer habits.
Actually he did during the continuous emergence of trade unions in the mid to late 19th century.
So DiLorenzo's claim that tariffs his exporters alone makes no sense.
That conclusion does not follow from anything you stated, thus making it a non-sequitur.
DiLorenzo also ignores the fact that the same tariffs he condemns so loudly also protected those southern exporters. There were tariffs on tobacco products, raw cotton, naval stores and the like.
It's hard not to ignore what is statistically negligible and largely nonexistant despite your unsourced claims otherwise. The only substantial protective tariff on a southern good was sugar, and it was geographically isolated and tiny in scope compared to northern products like steel.
All southern exports. But I guess those were OK, huh?
If what you claim were true, and it is not, common sense dictates that we should have seen the southerners jumping on the Morrill bandwagon and spending the 1860's clamoring for protection of their own like their northern counterparts. They did not and the overwhelming majority of their speeches, votes, and literature on the subject advocates free trade of the strongest forms known in the day. Your Lincolnomics renderings are as pitiful as ever, non-seq, yet you seemingly cannot resist making a continuous fool of yourself on this issue. Strange and sad.