>>>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.
This is an assertion, not a statement of fact. Please provide something resembling evidence that it is the case, or at least that such distribution was disproportionate to the populations involved or the taxes collected. Keep in mind that about 3/4 of the population lived in the north, depending on where you draw the line.
I would also like to point out that the north was not an "industrial" section. At least 75% of northerners still lived and worked in rural areas rather than cities. It was primarily rural, especially in the West. It was more industrial than the South, but who was preventing southerners from starting factories?
The Morrill tariff primarily benefited northern industries.
Since this tariff went into effect only after the South seceded, and passed Congress only because of the absence of southern senators, I find it difficult to see why this is relevant.
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.
Every northern consumer of these goods was in exactly the same position. There was a transfer of wealth not from section to section, but (net) from the agricultural to the industrial sector. Nobody forced the South to remain primarily agricultural and not develop industry.