[PeaRidge]

Brojoker making things up again: “50% is more realistic for 1860.”

BroJoe, as I have told you several times, you are not understanding your own data or correctly using it. You have confused export products, specie, and re-exports while failing to quote the entire export picture. Here is the information on export contributions:................................U. S. Department of Commerce
................................Agricultural Production of the South
........................................Yearly Detail 1859

Value of Total U.S. Exports ..........$278,902,000

Value of Raw Southern Products:

....................Cotton .....................$161,435,000
....................Tobacco .....................21,074,000
....................Rice ............................2,207,000
....................Naval stores .................3,696,000
....................Sugar ..........................197,000
....................Molasses ........................76,000
....................Hemp .............................9,000
....................Other ........................9,615,000
________
Total ( 71% ) $198,309,000

Value of Southern manufactured Cotton exports ............4,989,000
Value of cotton component of Northern Manufactured cotton exports (60%) ......3,669,000
___________
Total ( 74% ) $205,459,000

74%

U.S. Department of Commerce, U. S. Treasury, Report of L. E. Chittenden, Howell Cobb, Treasurer, Annual State of the Union Address, James Buchanan, J. D. B. DeBow, Charles Adams, Thomas Kettel, W. F. Taussig, Thomas Huertas, Historical Statistics of the United States Department of Commerce, pg. 106,432.

[BroJoeK]

PeaBrain: "Brojoker making things up again: “50% is more realistic for 1860.” BroJoe, as I have told you several times, you are not understanding your own data or correctly using it."

No, I'm referring you to a different source (page 605), one I think more accurate.
It paints a somewhat different picture than those used by pro-Confederate, beginning here:

1. For 1859 exports totaled $293 million about 5% more than the $279 you reported.
   But that's just the beginning.

2. It also shows 1859 imports as $345 million, or $66 million more than the $279 million exports you report.
   And remember, it's not exports but rather imports which pay the tariffs that provided Federal revenues.
   So the question is: where did money come from to pay for $345 million in imports?

3. Well, your numbers for cotton, rice & sugar seem OK, since those doubtless came from Deep South states.
   But those add up to about half of total 1859 imports of $345 million.

4. Everything else is subject to interpretation & dispute.
   Tobacco then & now was grown almost as much in Union states as in Southern states of the Confederacy.
   Naval stores in 1860 still came in part from Northern forests.
   Molasses came from sugarcane grown in the South, but also from sugar beets grown in the North.
   That huge "other" category is so undefined, and so large, it should be tossed out entirely as a "product of the South".

5. Bottom line: of the $345 million in US 1859 imports, Confederate state exports certainly paid for around half, but nowhere near the 75% to 87% sometimes claimed.