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!
Not true. There was an April 15, 1861, incident in Texas several days before the unrest in Baltimore (First deaths):
It happened in southeast Texas in a little known incident begun by a Tejano, Antonio Ochoa (pronounced as in O'Choa), who declared himself a Unionist. Ochoa began to organize men and declared publicly against the Confederacy. Most of his followers were sympathizers of Juan Cortinas. On April 12, 1861, Ochoa's men went to the Zapata County seat, Carrizo (the name was later changed to Zapata), and delivered to County Judge Isidoro Vela and County Sheriff Pedro Diaz, a copy of Ochoa's pronounciamento (declaration). Ochoa said he would hang either of them or any other county official that took the oath to the Confederacy.Colonel Ford sent his Confederate cavalry unit under Captain Matt Dunn to Zapata County. The 22 Rangers under Dunn's leadership and with Judge Vela and Sheriff Diaz along, rode to Clarendo where Ochoa had a ranch. At the ranch an announcement was made that the Rangers had warrants for the arrest of various named individuals starting with Ochoa, and asked them to step forward. The Mexicans began to file out of the main ranch building in an orderly manner when someone fired a shot. In the next few minutes, nine of the Mexicans lay dead.
From the Picayune report of this affair (they printed an April 15, 1861, report of their correspondent on May 3, 1861):
Nine Mexicans were killed in the charge, and several wounded; the rest made good their escape in the chaparral. To the credit of the Rangers, be it said, although there were a large number of women and children on the rancho, none were injured or molested in any way, nor a cents worth of property carried off. This prompt sort of treatment on the frontier will, I think, tend to check this disease in its primary stages.
The non-Confederates eventually succeded in hanging Judge Vela.
Because the entire history of taxation is testament to the fact that luxury goods are often ideal items to tax. Cigars are a pure luxury good, thus they are taxed.
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.
It was NOT illegal at all because the goods were still IMPORTS when they were shipped down the coast. Heck, Congress passed a law specifically allowing and encouraging just that:
"And be it further enacted, That any goods, when deposited in the public stores in the manner provided for in the foregoing section, may be withdrawn therefrom, and transported to any other port of entry, under the restrictions provided for in the act of the 2d March,1799, in respect to the transportation of goods, wares, and merchandise, from one collection district to another, to be exported with the benefit of drawback; and the owner of such goods so to be withdrawn for transportation shall give his bond with sufficient sureties, in double the amount of the duties charge-able on them, for the deposite of such goods in store in the port of entry to which they shall be destined, such bond to be cancelled when the goods shall be re-deposited in store in the collection district to which they shall be transported: Provided, That nothing contained in this section shall be con-strued to extend the time during which goods may be kept in store, after their original importation and entry beyond the term of one year." - 1846 Warehousing Act, Section 2 (emphasis added)
You ship goods to the port closest to your market to save on more expensive overland transportation.
Not always. Overland transportation itself by the 1860's was not prohibitively expensive (if it was nobody would have lived in virtually landlocked places like tennessee, minnesota, and kentucky before the automobile, yet they did). In some cases overland shipment by railroad actually had cost advantages to shipping (they were faster, more reliable, less susceptable to natural disasters and storms, and could easily reach areas that ships couldn't). Nor was it always inherently beneficial to ship direct from starting point X to ending point Y. In fact the overwhelming majority of shipping was NOT of this kind and the stats show it. By 1848 after warehousing went into widespread use approximately $15 million in goods were shipped into New York City warehouses from Europe, taken out months later, and shipped down to South American and the carribean. The figures climbed dramatically almost every single year after that until the system was repealed by the Morrill Bill.
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?
By the 1860's, yes they did. It was actually an economic benefit for them. Think about it: if you are a merchant carrying 1000 crates of clocks and you show up in NYC with your cargo the tariff house is gonna expect you to have cash up front to pay the taxes at the dock. That becomes a problem for you if you don't carry large sums of cash on you and don't have somebody waiting there immediately on the dock to buy everything you have in your cargo. It all changes though when the government permits warehousing under their laws as happened in 1846. Now you can put your goods in a warehouse until buyers are located, collect payment from those buyers, and use the payment to pay the tariff when the goods are removed from warehousing. This effectively frees up capital for merchants and allows non-wealthy merchants who don't carry large bags of cash on them to import with greater efficiency. So yes - it is entirely profitable to warehouse goods for a couple of months while a buyer is arranged.
I think you are just making 'stuff' up again.
Look it up in the statute books if you doubt me. It's called the Warehousing Act of 1846. It was also modelled directly on an extremely successful warehousing system used by Britain and developed by Walpole in the previous century. His economic writings on the concept of warehousing are found in virtually any good compilation of his works.
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.
In other words, kinda like Penn and Union today in NYC. Is that inconvenient? A little if you like to make direct trips but no more difficult than changing airport terminals today. Moving goods only a couple blocks over land is not an inherently prohibitory task itself either. In fact circa 1860 San Antonio, Texas was the largest city in the state and its surrounding agricultural regions supported a population of a couple hundred thousand people. They were a good hundred miles or more from the nearest rail head, which ended in Columbus to the west of Houston. Yet they got all the goods they needed over land. If they could do it over a hundred miles railroads in the east could do it over a mere 12 blocks.