I'm curious what your tariff revenue figures mean in terms of volume or value of imports in constant 1859 dollars. What if your import numbers were adjusted for the rate of wartime inflation and the effective tariff rates for those years?
This is what they were responding to: [an August 1861 meeting poster]
It has always amazed me that the old Northern calls for support of the Northern government, like your meeting poster, cite the Constitution and laws as though the North were on the side of the Constitution and the laws.
Before the War, Northern states flagrantly violated the Constitution over the issue of the return of escaped slaves. After the War started and before your August 1861 poster appeared, Lincoln violated the Constitution as follows:
Lincoln usurped the Constitutional power of Congress to raise and support armies and provide and maintain a navy
Lincoln usurped the power of Congress to declare war and regulate the ports
Lincoln usurped the power of Congress in suspending the writ of habeas corpus
Lincoln usurped the power of Congress to make and direct appropriations
Lincoln violated the Constitution with regard to searches and seizures
Lincoln abridged Constitutional freedom of speech in suppressing newspaper presses and arresting civilians for expressing political opinion
Lincoln violated the Constitution in arresting without civil processes citizens who were not subject to the rule of war
Lincoln's army had seized arms of private citizens on suspicion only and quartered soldiers in civilian houses without the consent of the owners
free dixie,sw
Both of those are definitely factors. The tariff was raised and there was inflation (although nothing like what the south saw--Union inflation was pretty much in line with wartime inflation during the World Wars). Nonetheless, the loss of the south during the war did not, in fact, cripple the economy of the north, so all claims that it would do so were false.