The Northeast was producing food for home consumption, not for export, so how much grain they exported wasn't strictly relevant. The Old Northwest may not have been the great exporter today's Midwest is, but they were the country's great producer of corn, wheat and other foodstuffs.
I don't have time to research all of this, but I would not be surprised if the food that New England needed and didn't produce domestically, came from the Great Lakes states, rather than from the South (and when we talk about "the South" in this context we're mostly talking about Virginia, rather than Mississippi, South Carolina and the other Deep South states). And in 1860, New York and Pennsylvania were still major agricultural states.
While criticizing the South for not embracing industrialization according to your purview, it must be admitted that manufacturing was moving South but not at the same rate as in other parts of the country. That was a function of demand, technology gains, finance, and cultural adaptation.
"It must be admitted"? By whom? "Moving South"? What we would now call industry was new and growing in various parts of the country, but it wasn't "moving South" in the same way that it did in recent decades. And yes, back then slavery and the unwillingness to industrialize were major factors holding the Southern states back.
While keeping this in mind, it is important to not minimize the severe impact on profit and land value of the impending Morrill Tariff, which was a well planned scheme of the Republican party.
The "impending" tariff didn't have any effects since it hadn't happened yet. It wasn't even "impending." That is to say, nobody could foresee what would happen. There would probably have been a rise in tariffs, though nothing like what eventually happened. In any case, that wouldn't have made trends that had started decades before.
[x]: The "impending" tariff didn't have any effects since it hadn't happened yet. It wasn't even "impending." That is to say, nobody could foresee what would happen. There would probably have been a rise in tariffs, though nothing like what eventually happened. In any case, that wouldn't have made trends that had started decades before.
x, I think you underestimate the effect the impending Morrill Tariff had on Northern ports and the business people whose livelihood depended on those ports. Although you apparently don’t think so, they could foresee what would happen. I suspect those Northerners were lobbying Lincoln like crazy for something to be done (e.g., repeal the Morrill Tariff) before it killed business at the Northern ports. I’ve seen it argued somewhere that there was a possibility Lincoln’s government might collapse if something was not done to avoid the coming catastrophe on Northern commerce. In my opinion, that may have been the impetus or reason Lincoln provoked the war – for economic reasons to prevent the Southern tariff from destroying Northern commerce.
The South seceded to protect slavery, the basis of their economy, but IMO an underlying reason for secession was the tariff which was harming the Southern economy and benefiting the North. The North shot itself in the foot by passing the Morrill Tariff. By contrast, the Confederate tariff was lower than the tariff of 1857. The difference in tariff rates would greatly boost Southern ports and Southern commerce and greatly harm Northern commerce if nothing happened to prevent that from happening.
Here is a sampling on opinions in the Northern press:
The New York Herald, March 2, 1861
The effect of these two tariffs, then, upon our trade with the best, and most reliable part of the country will most disastrously be felt in all the Northern cities. We learn that even now some of the largest houses in the Southern trade in this city, who have not already failed, are preparing to wind up their affairs and abandon business entirely. The result of this as regards the value of property, rents, and real estate, can be readily seen. Within two months from this time it will probably be depreciated from twenty to forty percent.
The New York Herald, March 19, 1861 [posted by GOPcapitalist in 2003]:
The combined effects of these two tariffs must be to desolate the entire North, to stop its importations, cripple its commerce and turn its capital into another channel … There is nothing to be predicted of the combination of results produced by the Northern and Southern tariffs but general ruin to the commerce of the Northern confederacy... The tariff of the South opens its ports upon fair and equitable terms to the manufacturers of foreign countries, which it were folly to suppose will not be eagerly availed of; which the stupid and suicidal tariff just adopted by the Northern Congress imposes excessive and almost prohibitory duties upon the same articles.
The Daily Picayune of New Orleans, April 3, 1861, quoting two New York papers:
The New York Evening Post: Bad as the law is in itself, the injustice of many of its provisions is hardly as gross as the stupidity of passing it at the very moment when the quarrel with the seceding states had reached its climax, and thus playing into their hands.
The New York Times: How can we maintain any national spirit under such humiliation? We take the step of all others most calculated to alienate the border states and foreign nations.
The New York Herald, as quoted in the March 28, 1861, Memphis Daily Appeal [paragraph breaks mine]:
The last Congress, in a spirit of mingled vengeance and fanaticism, enacted a tariff doubling the duties on many articles of foreign manufacture, and advancing them to a prohibitory point on others; and this was done to protect the manufacturing interests of the Northern States at the expense of the South.
It is doubtful, however, if this blundering instrument can ever be intelligibly interpreted by any collector of custom, or enforced at all in its present shape.
But at the same time the Congress of the Southern Confederacy has adopted a tariff reducing the duties on imports, the consequence of which will be that the importations will abandon the ports of the North and enter those of the South, and will then find their way to the interior by the Mississippi river and the railroads of the border States.
The result of this proceeding will be of course to destroy the trade of the North; and the very first portions of it to suffer will be New York, New Jersey, and New England. The imports here will be cut down to an insignificant figure; and the manufactures in the New England States will be seriously damaged; both business houses and factories will be transferred to the South; and, in fact, the northern tariff adopted to protect the manufacturing interests of the North will have no interests left to protect. The actual effect of the tariff, then, will be to reduce the revenues of the Government at Washington and increase the revenues of the Southern Government.
The Congress at Washington may attempt to avert this course of affairs, even to the extent of inaugurating a blockade of all the southern ports; vessels of war have been ordered home from all the foreign stations to enable the Administration to be prepared for this policy; but to such an event France and England would act as they did with regard to Texas; they would acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy, and send their fleets across the Atlantic to open every port in the South.
Thus we find the country involved in a fearful commercial revolution through the policy of a fanatical party, which, for thirty years, has been endeavoring to overthrow all the best interests of the Republic for the sake of an abstraction. We see the whole current of commercial prosperity turned out of its channel, the wealth and importance of the northern cities struck down at a blow. We have experienced many commercial revulsions before now from time to time -- in 1817, 1825, 1837 and 1857 -- but these were the results of overtrading, of excessive speculation, and other financial causes which may produce like consequences in any country. The present revulsion, on the contrary, arises from purely political causes, and will be as disastrous in its effects as it is novel in its origin.
The Cincinnati Enquirer as reported in the Memphis Daily Appeal of March 27, 1861:
The New York and all Eastern Republicans are getting clamorous for an extra session. They now admit that, critical and extraordinary as the condition of the country is, the President is without power to take any effectual step toward its relief. He can effect no fixed and decisive policy toward the seceding States, because no laws give him authority to carry it into effect.
He cannot enforce the laws, because no power has been put at his command for that purpose. He cannot close the ports which refuse to pay Federal duties, nor has he the authority to enforce payment except through the local authorities. These, moreover, are the least of the difficulties which embarrass the action of the Government. This loan is called for, but there is no prospect of revenue to render it safe. The seceded States invite imports under the tariff of 1857, at least ten per cent. lower than that which the Federal Government has just adopted. As a matter of course, foreign trade will seek southern ports, because it will be driven there by the Morrill tariff. It has been stated that Secretary Chase has been heard to say that the tariff bill must be repealed.
Lincoln ignored the calls for a session of Congress and set off on a course that he knew would provoke war. War would enable him to blockade Southern ports rendering moot the difference in tariff rates that would otherwise destroy Northern commerce.
Businesses in New York began suffering greatly here are two accounts of what was happening to businesses in New York City as a result of the difference in tariff rates
The New Orleans Daily Crescent, May 15, 1861 quoting the New York Day Book [my bold emphasis on the last sentence of the article below]:
[There] have been over 200 failures in New York since the 22d April, and within the last month not less than 300. Real estate has no sale at any price and rents are comparatively normal. Total bankruptcy stares all in the face, and starvation will become a daily visitor to the abode of the poor.
All New York is failing. The suspensions and failures of the past few days have been fearful, and the war promises to bankrupt every merchant in New York. The retail business is as bad off as the wholesale. Nobody is purchasing anything, and trade is killed.
The foreign bill market continues very dull and heavy.
The following is a comparative statement of the imports of foreign dry goods at the port of New York for the week ending April 27:
For the week. 1860 ..... 1861
Entered at the port, $1,503,483 ..... $393,061
Thrown on the market, $1,650,790 ..... $396,992
The imports of dry goods are very small this week, probably the least reported for many years.
Well may Mr. Lincoln ask, "What will become of my revenue?"
He did present an apology for the war.
The point is that New England was a net importer of food as documented by the Treasury records.
Argue that if you like, but that is the fact.