Believe me, it's you who don't understand what you're saying.
The importance of specie is that it makes a lie of pro-Confederate claims that Southern exports paid for 75% to 87% of Federal revenues.
In fact, when you consider specie that number was much closer to 50%.
So now, let's go right to the heart of your ridiculous argument: those Northeastern bankers and merchants you so vilify were, in fact, political and economic allies to Southern slaveocrats.
For many decades before 1861 they walked arm in arm together socially, they were lip-locked economically and joined at the hip politically.
And they were all Democrats!.
They hated abolition, they hated Republicans and they hated "Ape" Lincoln.
They wanted Union political compromises to stop secession and they certainly didn't want war against their slaveocrat friends.
These Democrats! opposed Lincoln in 1860 and worked to prevent his election.
And who was this Lincoln?
He was a mid-western country Whig lawyer with some military & political experience, dedicated to law and constitution, but no known ties to those Northeastern Democrats!.
Now suddenly, DiogenesLamp, with no evidence -- zero, nada, nothing evidence -- wishes us to believe that these Northeastern Democrats! prevailed on Lincoln to start a war just to save their sorry economic *sses?
No.
DiogenesLamp: "The only economic considerations that affect whether or not the North needed to go to war with the South, are those that are affected by Southern Independence."
Neeeeeed or no-need, those Northeastern Democrats! were not going to drive Lincoln into something he would not do otherwise.
Their concerns were irrelevant.
What certainly did matter to Lincoln was his oath of office to the Constitution, his desires to preserve the Union and his understandings about such matters as rebellion, insurrection, "domestic violence", treason and invasion.
Lincoln was also an abolitionist who fully understood that war was one method to constitutionally emancipate slaves.
That's why Lincoln's inaugural address told secessionists they could not have war unless they themselves started it.
Which they soon did.
DiogenesLamp: " 'Specie' would remain the same with or without Southern independence, and so therefore it is a non factor in regards to the North's decision to invade the South to stop their independence."
But, but specie was certainly an important factor in making Deep South cotton irrelevant to the overall Northern economy during Civil War.
Specie was part of the reason the North didn't really need Southern cotton and therefore would not have gone to war just for that.
DiogenesLamp: "I don't have to read the rest of what you wrote.
When you write "specie" you don't grasp the point.
As Wolfgang Pauli said: 'You are not even wrong.' "
Because you refuse to read and comprehend my posts you continue to pretend I don't answer or understand.
In fact, my answers are right there, slapping you in the face, but you make no effort to learn.
Thus demonstrating that DiogenesLamp is a dedicated pro-Confederate propagandist, not a serious truth-seeker.
Even with your heavily massaged number which includes everything and the kitchen sink thrown in in an effort to make it come out that low, you still have 20 million people in the North producing 50% of the Trade, and 5 million people in the South producing 50% of the trade.
That's 4 to 1 economic productivity from the South to the North.
20 million Northerners were producing only 1/4 per capita of the export value of the 5 million Southerners.
And the vast bulk of the return money still came back through New York. You can pretend that money meant nothing to the Northern Industrialists/ Shippers, etc, but you are only fooling yourself.
They had gotten rich off of slave produced trade.