I am aware this number is frequently tossed around, but I am afraid I find it very difficult to swallow.
Tariffs are taxes on imports, collected at the port of entry. They are essentially a sales tax and like all sales taxes are paid in the long run by the consumer.
In 1860 the slave states had about 9M people and the free states about 22M. Of the 9M, about 4M, the slaves, lived by definition in the most extreme poverty and consumed very little.
This means that if the above statement is true, 5M people, or 16% of the US population, managed to consume 87% of the goods on which tariffs were charged.
I hope you will forgive me if I find it more than a little difficult to agree that the average white person in the south consumed between 5x and 6x as much in tariffed goods as the average white northerner.
>>>Tariffs are taxes on imports, collected at the port of entry. They are essentially a sales tax and like all sales taxes are paid in the long run by the consumer. <<<
All revenue from the tariff went to the federal government, which redistributed the bulk of it to the industrial north.
>>>This means that if the above statement is true, 5M people, or 16% of the US population, managed to consume 87% of the goods on which tariffs were charged.<<<
Those numbers, even if true, are meaningless. The Morrill tariff primarily benefited northern industries. The South had no industrial base, and thus had only 2 choices: they either imported goods from Europe (and paid the tariff), or purchased those same goods from northern manufacturers at high prices. Either way, they was a wealth transfer from the South to the northern states.
>>>Tariffs are taxes on imports, collected at the port of entry. They are essentially a sales tax and like all sales taxes are paid in the long run by the consumer. <<<
All revenue from the tariff went to the federal government, which redistributed the bulk of it to the industrial north.
>>>This means that if the above statement is true, 5M people, or 16% of the US population, managed to consume 87% of the goods on which tariffs were charged.<<<
Those numbers, even if true, are meaningless. The Morrill tariff primarily benefited northern industries. The South had no industrial base, and thus had only 2 choices: they either imported goods from Europe (at higher prices because of the tariff), or purchased those same goods from northern manufacturers at high, tariff-subsidized prices. Either way, they was a wealth transfer from the South to the northern states.