And what would be those, and where did you find them?
You: My post #248 includes a link....It shows exports of goods as $334 million in 1860, while net of specie was another $58 million.
I assume that represents gold & silver from new mines out west.
It was metals but source is not listed in your tables.
Your data of $334 is wrong. Actual export value of US goods (from US Treasury report) was $316 million. Your data table has likely included the value of re-exports which is valid for their bookkeeping but not for your North/South comparisons. Your second link showing the lower figure of $316 is correct for US exports that year.
You: For a detailed breakdown of what those exports were, see this link, referred to as the Hanson tables.
Hanson tables show raw cotton exports as $192 million, which is 54% of $357 total exports.
Hanson lists exports by type. Your figure is cotton and does not include Southern exports of tobacco, food, semi-finished cotton goods, chemicals, hemp, or the proportional value of finished cotton.
DeBow and Kettel have done excellent work on pulling together the entire data listings. That data shows the Southern contributions to export value in the 75 to 87#% range depending on year.
Then you launch off on whether to count specie. It was precious metals used as payment for something. Nothing in the your data tables says to whom or for what. The statistical tables from Treasury records do break out by source such as foreign countries transshipping through US ports.
So, you see, that has to be factored out because it was not sourced production.
What these numbers clearly show is that your conclusions are strongly influenced by what you decide to include or exclude.
My figure of $357 million total exports is based on including only half of the "species" exports shown in the reference.
Had I included all $58 million of species exports, total exports would be $392 million, making cotton exports of $192 million less than 50%.
You talk about "re-exports" as if they should be summarily dismissed, but I don't see why.
If, for example, a New York merchant buys up a ship-load of, say, coffee from Columbia, brings it to New York where he offloads half for US customers, refills that half-ship with cotton he purchased from the South and then sends the ship on to customers in Manchester, England, England, across the Atlantic... see, I believe one commodity is just as much a export as the other, at least in terms of profits received by that New York merchant.
Again, my point is: the overall US import-export picture in 1861 was as complicated, and subject to interpretations, as it is today, and not amenable to such simplistic statements as, "Southern cotton & tobacco represented 75+% of all US exports."
PeaRidge: "Hanson lists exports by type.
Your figure is cotton and does not include Southern exports of tobacco, food, semi-finished cotton goods, chemicals, hemp, or the proportional value of finished cotton."
You are including much as "southern exports" which not-necessarily were Deep South or even Upper South exports.
Tobacco, for example, even today is produced in such non-southern states as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut and Indiana.
So it is far from safe to assume that all non-cotton agricultural exports in 1861 came from future Confederate states.
PeaRidge: "DeBow and Kettel have done excellent work on pulling together the entire data listings.
That data shows the Southern contributions to export value in the 75 to 87#% range depending on year."
Again, I'm saying they overstate the value of future-Confederate state exports while understating the value of total 1860 US exports.
PeaRidge: "The statistical tables from Treasury records do break out by source such as foreign countries transshipping through US ports."
But "foreign countries" did not transship through US ports.
Instead, as my example above shows, US merchants purchased foreign products, brought them into the US, often added value to them, such as converting cotton to cloth, then "transshipped" to other foreign customers.
In the process, the US merchants charged a profit, which was then used to help pay for imports from foreign countries, including tariffs for the US treasury.
PeaRidge: "So, you see, that has to be factored out because it was not sourced production."
Of course, for your purposes of maximizing the importance of Southern cotton, tobacco, etc., exports and minimizing the value of other US export related products & services, you would naturally wish to exclude everything possible.
But in reality, there was a much bigger picture here in 1860, of which future Confederate state exports were indeed important, perhaps 50+%, but were by no means the only games in town as represented by your 75% to 87% figures.