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Thanks for asking.

I like the data from the US Treasury. Each year the President included the Treasurer's report in his Message to the Congress. Those figures may not be that accurate since the report was given to Congress before the calendar year end, and does not completely agree with the Department's annual year end data. Add to that the fact that each President wanted to make a positive report, so sometimes the data was massaged.

In the Statistical History of the United States, available in your library, the data is given back to that period and is accurate Jan to Dec. US Treasury figures.

The best method of tracking down what was imported to where is by studying both the Treasury data and comparing that with US Census data, but few are going to go back to the Globe records of the President's messages or to the library and do the calculations.

If you want an accurate understanding then the point of collection tariff data thrown around has to be put aside and seen for what it is.....point of collection information but not in any way indicative of point of consumption.

As for sources the original figures of imports into the South for 1860 that I gave came from the Encarta encyclopedia.

Encarta 1860 data does not appear to be wrong. Referring to Thomas Kettell's work, his research said that in 1859, according to the trade data and the manufacturing data, that $240 million in domestic goods were sent South for consumption. He also stated that based on shipping receipts that $106 million in imported goods went South, either directly from Europe or trans-shipped from Northern ports. ("Southern Wealth and Northern Profits", Thomas P. Kettell, 1860, New York)

That gives a figure of $346 million in imported goods at the South, which is about what Encarta said about the imports in 1860.

Now wait a minute. On Friday you were saying that your statistics came from the Treasury report supplement to Buchanan's 1860 State of the Union address. You said, in post #692, "The information is in the US Treasury Report section of President Buchanan's Message and Documents also known as the State of the Union speech. It requires some research." Well, I pulled up that report, read it over and over, and can't find anything like the information you said it contained.

Now you're telling us that, well, those numbers are sometimes massaged and in any event you got it from Encarta article. Can you post the link to it for everyone to see?