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To: Non-Sequitur
That's right, and they were doing very well, too. But tariffs are levied on imports, not exports. And the bulk of the imports were consumed by the North.

Learn some economics. Taxes on imports always become taxes on exports. When your trading partners retaliate some sectors of the economy can pass the cost along by raising prices and by squeezing workers - manufacturers for instance. Agricultural producers who sell commodities on the world market cannot pass the cost to anyone. So when the music stops the southern farmers were left paying the tariff. Raising the tariff back to tariff of abominations levels was in the republican party platform and raising the tariff was one of the first things they did when they got in office.

136 posted on 10/12/2007 11:46:24 AM PDT by antinomian
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To: antinomian
Learn some economics. Taxes on imports always become taxes on exports.

I'm actually pretty conversant in economics, enough to know better than apply 21st century economics to 19th century situations. In 1860 there were no tariffs on imported cotton in Britain. As a commodity that they didn't produce and which their domestic industries relied on it would have been counterproductive. Your claim that the southern cotton producers were left paying the tariff is not supported by any evidence I've seen. Other than Southron fairy tales, that is.

Raising the tariff back to tariff of abominations levels was in the republican party platform and raising the tariff was one of the first things they did when they got in office.

Something that was possible only because all the Southern senators were off revolting. Had they been in office, the Morrel Tariff would not have passed.

139 posted on 10/12/2007 11:54:05 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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