Exports from the United States were raw materials, foodstuffs, and manufactures that were surplus goods over and above the needs of the people. They found their way to the shipping centers of the Northeast and were sent to the foreign countries that paid the most for the goods.
Upon analysis of Census and Customs data of the 1850s, it is clear that the export trade of the country, with regard to the origin of the exports, was three quarters of the whole of Southern origin. Much of raw materials used in manufacturing was of Southern origin.
Specifically, in 1860, the total value of exports as measured at US Customs houses before shipment was $316 million. Items of Southern origin such as cotton, tobacco, rice, naval stores, sugar, molasses, hemp, wheat and other products, along with the value of the cotton used in Northern export manufactures comprised 78% of the export issue.
The manufactures of the North were a small proportion of US trade. Those companies had been operated under the protective system, avowedly because they could not compete with the English manufacturers in the US market, and therefore certainly could not in a European market.
The greatest increase in Northern manufacturing had taken place in cotton based goods, which had raw materials supplied in greater amounts due to increases in Southern production in the 1850s. The South afforded raw material for Northern manufacturing.
New England, where the barren hills did not produce either the metals or other raw materials for durable goods, or the fields to produce grain for food, was especially vulnerable to change. Improved transportation and the resulting competition from Western farmers caused farmers in the Northeast to reduce their production of grain and shift to dairy farming and truck gardening, both of which provided them with products to sell to city dwellers that would not face competition from Western farmers
If secession occurred and faced without a market for their manufactures, the people had no source of raw materials for their employment, or payment for their food.
According to census figures, in the 1850s, the South produced twice the amount of food per person than the New England states. In fact, New England grew less than the amounts needed to sustain their population, but the large manufacturing interest of that section enabled it to import food from the South and West in exchange for merchandise. New England was a net importer of its food, largely from the South.
Northern cities and states bought corn, flour, sugar, rice, tobacco, lumber, hides, beef, pork, lard, molasses, naval stores, hemp, vegetables, oysters, and fruits from the South. The value of Southern goods shipped North in 1860 was $460 million.
The Northern states had their raw materials and food brought to them, and sent back goods manufactured under the cover of protective tariffs
In 1860, the South imported $346 million dollars worth of products. Of this list of goods, $240 million came from the Northern manufacturers and suppliers, and imported goods sold to the South was $106 million.
The entire country imported $336 million dollars in goods for that same year.
Grasping the significance and the magnitude of difference between the new Confederate tariff and the recently passed Morrill tariff, and the likelihood that the South would now transfer this demand to European goods and trade directly with Europe, Northern businessmen, politicians, and newspapermen knew that the demand for goods from the South was immense and would have a far reaching impact on their economy.
Practically every New England citizen would be affected by the loss of Southern goods traveling through the North.
Any artisan engaged in building in the shipping trade would be hurt. Any carman engaged in carrying, any agent who sold manufacturers, any merchant who sold to consumers in the South, any shipper, ship builder, lumberman, or laborer would be hurt.
Any brokers, exchange dealers, bankers, insurers, warehousemen, or suppliers of goods to these people would be hurt.
The profits to Northern coffers that were about to be lost were:
Bounties to fisheries, per annum………………………………$1,500,000.
Customs, per annum, disbursed at the North…………………$40,000,000.
Profits of northern manufacturers…………………………….$30,000,000.
Profits of importers…………………………………………...$16,000,000.
Profits of shipping, imports, exports………………………….$40,000,000.
Profits of Travelers……………………………………………$60,000,000.
Profits of agents, brokers, commissions……………………….$10,000,000
Profits from capital drawn from the South…………………….$30,000,000.
Total Annual Revenue Lost………………………………… $226,500,000.
Sources: US Dept. of Treasury; "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits", Kettel; W. E. B. Dubois; Statistical History of the U.S.
Whoever wrote it has a gift for clear and concise prose.
And yet, faced with a violent rebellion and the loss of those markets the northern states managed to survive and even recover. Imagine that.