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Duh. That's my point. The tariff on cigars was high under both the USA and CSA to help reduce the demand for Cuban cigars and help southern tobacco planters and cigar makers.

Wrong. By standards of the pre-war US tariffs 25% wasn't high at all. It is only 4% more than the average national tariff rate from 1846-57 and about 7% more than the average rate from 1857-60.

Same goes with sugar.

Wrong again. The CSA sugar tariff was actually about 1% lower than the average tariff rate from 1846-57 and only about 2% more than the average rate from 1857-60. By the standards of the time it simply wasn't protectionist.

Look at the CSA import tax on coffee ---- zero percent. How come? Do you think it could be that there was no coffee grown in Dixie?

More likely it has to do with the fact that southerners had resented tariffs on coffee since Alexander Hamilton first installed them in the 1790's. The U.S. didn't have many coffee growers then either, yet that didn't stop tax and spend Hamilton.

You just pulled that out of your hat. Quit making things up as you go along.

It's a hypothetical example, ditto. It does however accurately reflect how trade works. It also accurately reflects what was going on in New York circa 1860. They called it "reexporting" and "reshipping." It happened when merchants using the Warehousing Act withdrew items from NYC warehouses after buyers had been located elsewhere in the country or even elsewhere the world. In the late 1850's something to the tune of $50 million worth of goods annually went into NYC warehouses only to be removed a few months later for reexportation INTERNATIONALLY to the carribean and south america. I'll even give you the sources on that and the exact figures when I get home tonight of you like. In light of that activity the issue is self evident: If British merchants were willing to store their stuff in NYC for a couple months then ship it all the way down to Brazil why would they not be willing to do the same with Charleston, which was just up the coast? The answer is simple: they were willing to do the same with Charleston and did exactly that. Merchants are not like passenger liners, ditto. They do not operate back and forth between the same two cities. They go where the cargo needs to go with a goal in mind of (a) carrying whatever cargo will maximize their profits and (b) ensuring that as few legs of the trip as possible are made without profitable cargo.

You should be aware that foreign registry vessels were not, and are still not allowed to participate in the inter coastal trade

That's where warehousing comes in, Ditto. It's not technically "intercoastal trade" when you are carrying imports that have only been warehoused in the country but did not originate there. If I unload a shipment of swiss clocks and put them into a NYC warehouse they are still my clocks and still imports.

As to the Warehousing Act, I'd say that the Southerners must have been pretty damn stupid if they could not have built a warehouse

Why would they need to? It was more profitable to simply go to New York where there already were warehouses. Boston and Philadelphia and Baltimore generally did not invest in warehouses of this type for the same reason: New York already had em and New York's warehouses were more profitable than those elsewhere.

BTW. Do you realize that in 1860, the farthest south a train could go from New York was Baltimore?

That is simply not true. The famous Baltimore and Ohio railroad moved southward from there and crossed the Potomac into Virginia at several spots. It passed through Harper's Ferry at a major train intersection today. A quick glance at an 1860 railroad map that I have also indicates that railroads connected every single major city on the east coast. Southern railroad lines were continuous between Alexandria, Virginia just outside of DC all the way down to Pensacola, Florida. Westward connections could take you from the east coast as far as Monroe and New Orleans, Louisiana in the south and almost to Little Rock on the northern routes.

From there, every piece of freight needed to be unloaded and hauled by horse and wagon across the city to reach the next rail line heading south. You would think that folks would have figured out that was not too damn efficient

I don't know what their plans were for building a connector between the two, but it is not necessarily as inefficient as you think. Railroad hubs are used for sorting goods as well as transfering them to connecting routes, so unloading may be of necessity anyway. There were, after all, several different railroads that went through Baltimore, some southbound and others westbound. I also know that to this day when I go to New York City I have to get off the first train at Grand Central and travel by other means to another train a couple miles away at Penn with reasonably substantial inconvenience. You'd think by now that they would build a connector between the two (and don't tell me they have - that subway line only gets you part of the way and then you have to transfer off of it).

By standards of the pre-war US tariffs 25% wasn't high at all

Then why was the tariff on Cuban cigars higher than the tariff on any other good? It's a hypothetical example, ditto. It does however accurately reflect how trade works.

You said that European ships for some reason stopped in New York, paid tariffs then took those goods to the south. You were wrong. Besides the fact that it was illegal, it is not how trade worked then or now. You ship goods to the port closest to your market to save on more expensive overland transportation. Foreign ships dock at both the east, west and south coasts today depending on the destination of their cargo. Folks back then did the exact same thing which is why all ports had custom houses. Most custom houses in the south back then barely raised enough revenue to cover their own costs of operations.

It happened when merchants using the Warehousing Act withdrew items from NYC warehouses after buyers had been located elsewhere in the country or even elsewhere the world. In the late 1850's something to the tune of $50 million worth of goods annually went into NYC warehouses only to be removed a few months later for reexportation INTERNATIONALLY to the carribean and south america.

They sat on $50 m worth of goods for "months" and managed to ship it to the Carribean, pay whatever tariff was due in those ports, sell them at some price competitive to what the natives would spend if they bought direct from Europe, and still make a profit? I think you are just making 'stuff' up again. Try to think your dodges through before you post them. They're getting silly.

The famous Baltimore and Ohio railroad moved southward from there and crossed the Potomac into Virginia at several spots.

The famous B&O did not go north of Baltimore. The B&O yards were on the west side of Baltimore harbor (about where Camdam Yards ballpark sits today. The only line from the north which went to Philadelphia and on to New York terminated on the East side of the harbor (their main station is now a nice little Civil War museum.) South bound goods, or passengers, had to quite literally get off the train from Philly and take wagons or carrages about 12 blocks down Pratt St. to reach the B&O terminal. It is Pratt street where the first casualties of the civil War occurred when Union troops heading for Washington were attacked while marching to the B&O station to get the train to Washington.

You are wrong --- again!