Thanks. I wish we could find some sort of GDP by state data because I want to separate out what part of the New York/New England economy was tied to the European trade.
I believe your 87% number, but most people on the other side will reject that out of hand. BroJoeK has admitted to 50% of the total. (and this produced by the 1/4th of the population living in the South)
The ugly truth which the other side simply does not wish to believe is that the Money earned by Southern production was extremely significant to the economic interests of the New York/New England industries.
Secession by the Southern states not only removed this source of income, but would have soon created competition for NORTHERN INDUSTRIES, such as Southern based Textile and other factories.
Not only were they going to lose the trade, they would have competing industries undercutting their markets, and the business men of New England were intelligent enough to see this once they had been awoken to the danger an independent South represented to their interests.
It was a matter of financial survival for them to stop this before it got started, hence the war, which was in fact, a protectionist war.
Of course it was "extremely significant", roughly 50% of all US exports cannot be other than "extremely significant".
Plus, Deep South states were then the Saudi Arabia of world cotton producers, nobody else came even close.
But, as it turned out, cotton was not nearly as vital to either the US Northern economy or to global cotton markets as Confederate leaders had imagined.
Seems during the Civil War all quickly figured out how to do without.
And that's my only point here.
Not that cotton wasn't important -- it was.
Just not as important as some Southerners imagined.
Finally, US cotton was not produced by "1/4" of the US population.
It was almost entirely produced by about three million slaves who were 10% of total US population in 1860.