I may have mentioned Thomas P. Kettell before but his book in 1856 titled Southern Wealth and Northern Profits provides an excellent analysis of the economies of both the northern and southern states before the Civil War. Kettell was a political economist, magazine editor and author from Boston who enjoyed a great degree of prominence before the Civil War. He presented an array of statistics in his book and discussed the economic advantages that existed in the north and the federal tariff inequity. On pages 126-127 of his book he states: "From the earliest period of the government the federal revenues have been derived from duties on goods imported. The duties have not been levied with a single view to revenue, but have been so adjusted as to afford the largest protection to Northern manufactures. In other words, to tax the consumers of goods West and South for the support of Eastern manufactures. The amount of customs so collected in the past 70 years reaches 1100 millions of dollars, a large portion of which was disbursed at the North. This sum has been paid mostly by the South and West into the federal treasury, on goods imported. The sum of these may be 20 per cent, of the quantity home manufactured, and the value of which has been increased in the ratio of the duty. If, however, it is assumed that the home-made goods have been enhanced in value only to the extent of the customs revenue, then the Eastern manufacturers have obtained 1100 millions of dollars as tribute from the South and West. That large sum has been taken from agricultural industry and added to manufacturing industry. The fisheries of the Eastern States drew $5,000,000 as bounties paid to those engaged in them, out of the federal treasury, to the date of the abolition of those bounties. The North enjoyed a monopoly of the carrying trade, foreign vessels being excluded. These, and other circumstances drew the surplus capital from the agriculturist into the coffers of the manufacturer. The accumulation of capital thus brought about, became invested in stocks, banks, insurance companies, all of which drew large profits on credits granted to the other sections."
J. L. M. Curry was a U.S. Congressman from Alabama who delivered a speech "The Perils and Duty of the South" in Nov. 1860 in which he also discussed the economies of the north and south. He references Thomas Kettell in his speech but he also presents other sources in regards to the inequity of the federal tariff.
In his speech, Mr. Curry stated : "In this connection it may be pertinent to examine into the operations of the Federal Government, and of northern connection, and ascertain how much the South is annually drained and depleted by what is paid to the North. The facts prove that the southern States have been to the North as the conquered province were to Rome, when the tributes exacted from them were sufficient to defray the whole expenses of the Government. A report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1838 shows that, in the five years, 1833-'37, out of $102,000,000 of expenditure, only $37,000,000 were in the slave States; yet, during the same years, they paid $90,000,000 of duties to $17,500,000 paid by the free States. The amount of customs collected, says Kettell, in the past seventy years, reaches eleven hundred millions of dollars, a large portion of which was disbursed at the North. Bounties to fisheries have amounted to over $13,000,000, and have been paid mostly to Maine and Massachusetts. Like unjust inequalities are exhibited in the appropriation of public lands, in the light-house system, in the collection of customs, in the internal improvement system, in the erection of court and custom houses, and hospitals and post offices. An intelligent writer says, that the heads of federal expenditure show that while the South has paid seven-ninths of the taxes, the North has had seven-ninths of their disbursements. The North furnishes, in great degree, our carriers, importers, merchants, bankers, brokers, and insurers. One of the ablest statisticians and political economists in America, Mr. Kettell, a northern man, estimates the annual amount of means sent North by southern owners and producers, as the sum of their dealing with the North, at $462,560,394. The South furnishes six-sevenths of the freight for the shipping of the country, while the North supplies one-seventh. The South pays $36,000,000 per annum to the shipping interest for the transportation of the products of slave labor. "All the profitable branches of freighting, brokering, selling, banking, insurance, &c., that grow out of southern products, are enjoyed in New York. The profits that importers, manufacturers, bankers, factors, jobbers, warehousemen, carmen, and every branch of industry connected with merchandizing, realize, from the mass of goods that pass through northern cities, are paid by southern consumers." The same careful authority approximates the annual load which southern industry, dependent on southern labor, is required to carry, at $231,500,000, and distributes among bounties to fishermen, customs, importers, manufacturers, shippers, agents, travellers, &c. It is this North grown rich from the earnings of slave labor, dependent for its prosperity and profits upon southern wealth, that has placed Lincoln and them that "hate us to rule over us." "
