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Found this. BroJoeK is constantly trying to minimize or obfuscate the fact that *MOST* of the Trade money was being produced by the South. Apparently some Northern newspapers at the time accurately recognized this.

Cleveland’s Daily National Democrat November 20, 1860.

“The entire amount, in dollars and cents, of produce and of manufactured articles exported to foreign countries from the United States for the year ending June, 1858, was $293,758,279, of which amount the raw cotton exported alone amounted to $131,386,661. . . taking the estimate of the cotton used [in the] North . . . and adding it to the worth of the cotton sent abroad, and we have over one hundred and fifty-eight million dollars[’] worth of cotton as the amount furnished by the South.
Deduct from the exports the silver and gold and the foreign goods exported, and the cotton crop of the South alone exported exceeds the other entire export of the United States, and when to this we add the hemp and Naval stores, sugar, rice, and tobacco, produced alone in the Southern States, we have near two-thirds of the value entire of exports from the South.
Let the States of the South separate, and the cotton, the rice, hemp, sugar and tobacco, now consumed in the Northern States must be purchased [from the] South, subject to a Tariff duty, greatly enhancing their cost. The cotton factories of New England now, by getting their raw cotton duty free, are enabled to contend with the English in the markets of their own Provinces, and in other parts of the world. A separation would take from us this advantage, and it would take from the vessels owned by the North the carrying tradeof the South, now mostly monopolised by them.”

In other words, *we* are correct, and BroJoeK is absolutely wrong. This statement was contemporary and from OHIO, a Northern state.

It also points out that the North had monopolized the shipping trade, just as we've been saying.

Yes, obfuscate with canards.

From the Treasury records of 1861 http://constitution.org/uslaw/treas-rpt/1861_report_secretary_treasury.pdf

UNITED STATES EXPORTS for 1860

NORTHERN ORIGIN.

Products of the sea . . . . . $ 4,156,180

Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,368,917

Provisions . . . . . . . . . . 20,215,226

Breadstuffs . . . . . . . . . 19,022,901

Manufactures . . . . . . . . . 25,599,547

Total Northern Origin . . . . .$77,363,070

SOUTHERN ORIGIN

Forest . . . . . . . . . . $ 6,085,931

Breadstuffs . . . . . . . . 9,567,397

Cotton . . . . . . . . . . 191,806,555

Tobacco . . . . . . . . . . 19,278,621

Hemp, &c. . . . . . . . . . . 746,370

Manufactures . . . . . . . .10,934,795

Total Southern Origin . . . . . $238,419,680

Total exports . . . . . $335,782,740

DiogenesLamp quoting: "Cleveland’s Daily National Democrat November 20, 1860"

Found it!

DiogenesLamp quoting: "Deduct from the exports the silver and gold and the foreign goods exported, and the cotton crop of the South alone exported exceeds the other entire export of the United States, and when to this we add the hemp and Naval stores, sugar, rice, and tobacco, produced alone in the Southern States, we have near two-thirds of the value entire of exports from the South."

Sure, and you could say much the same thing today if you exclude whole categories of exports such as raw materials.
But why do that?
In fact, US exports in 1858 totaled $324 million, including specie (gold & silver).
Of that, cotton totaled $131 million, or 40%.
That's huge, but it's not "two-thirds".

DiogenesLamp quoting: "A separation would take from us this advantage, and it would take from the vessels owned by the North the carrying tradeof the South, now mostly monopolised by them."

DiogenesLamp: "In other words, *we* are correct, and BroJoeK is absolutely wrong.
This statement was contemporary and from OHIO, a Northern state."

No, "in other words" both you and this Cleveland newspaper are exaggerating for effect the importance of cotton & other Deep-South exports to the Northern economy.
Nobody denies they were important, just not as important as DiogenesLamp, PeaRidge and Confederates of that time imagined.
In fact, when there was no trade between Union & Confederacy the Northern economy made adjustments, prospered and prosecuted war without any Southern input -- effectively zero, zip, nada Southern inputs.

DiogenesLamp: "It also points out that the North had monopolized the shipping trade, just as we've been saying."

But the key word there is "mostly", meaning a majority not a monopoly.
The fact is no law prevented Southerners from building, owning and operating their own intracoastal packet ships, and some did:

Intracoastal packet, SS Planter, built in Charleston SC, 1860, loaded with 1,000 bales of cotton.
The US cotton crop in 1860 was approx. 5 million bales worth just under $200 million.