[Non-Sequitur]

Two problems with your arguement. The first one is that in the year prior to the Civil War about 95% of all tariff revenue was collected in three ports - New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. So it can be safely said that the North was paying the lion's share of the tariff, not the south. Second, if tariffs were such a bone of contention for the south then why was one of their first actions the implementation of a tariff which taxed virtually anything and everything imported (except slaves) and at rates some of which were higher than the rates imposed by the federal tariff they were supposed to be rebelling against?

[budo]

If you are correct, & 95% of the tariff was collected in northern ports in 1860, then the north paid the lion's share - in 1860 (would you conflate a single year's stats with the general situation?). But this would be news to me...Taussig's volume, "Tariff History of the U.S.", as far as I know, is considered seminal, and is my source. If you have another source, please share it. As to the second point, if you are referring to the period of time when the south was seriously outmanned, outsupplied, in desperate need of everything, her civilian population under seige, ports blockaded (just what is it you think was being imported, I wonder?) -and still kicking hell out of the yankee invaders - any & all means of raising revenue makes sense to me: it was life or death. Reread my post re: the drastic lowering - virtual elimination - of tariffs that wass written INTO the CSA constitution & the efffect that bit of info had on the northern appetite for invasion.