[rockrr]

I read the PDF of "Ship Subsidies". In addition to being desert-dry reading the most outstanding aspect of the treatise was that there was zero sectionalism involved or reported. The entire emphasis was how the colonies, then country responded to the challenges of international shipping.

And I chuckled a bit at this (bold emphasis mine):

I t is to be expected that when the major portion of the people of a country dwell near the seashore, and hear the “ call of the sea, $ a very great interest will be taken by the general public in shipping affairs . Therefore, it was natural that the colonies were scarcely well settled before they began to endeavor to build up their shipping by discriminations at the expense of one another or of alien carriers . A number of the colonial charters authorized the levying of discriminating duties . Virginia seems to have been the first, in 1 63 1 , with a duty of two and one half per cent on goods imported by foreign subjects, and five per cent on all goods imported by foreigners , the latter goods presumably in foreign bottoms .

It goes on with a recitation of the coastal states and how & when they entered into the competition for shipping. The steps that were taken by the states were against foreign interests, not domestic ones, and all were invited to the party.

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "Virginia seems to have been the first, in 1631, with a duty of two and one half per cent on goods imported by foreign subjects, and five per cent on all goods imported by foreigners..."

If I follow it correctly, PeaRidge's argument seems to go like this:

Some Northern shippers were exclusively given US mail subsidies effecting a handful of ships.
These subsidies were so lucrative, and so exclusively limited to Northerners that they stamped out the previously prosperous Southern shippers from any of the many hundreds of ships required to transport Deep South exports like cotton or rice.
And because of their monopolistic practices, these government subsidized Northerners were able to extract 40% of the revenues from Deep South cotton.

And that's the real reason making Deep South declarations of secession "necessary", they say!

But the problems with their argument are almost too many to enumerate, beginning with: if these "subsidies" were indeed so "lucrative", then why did SS Baltic's owners, the Collins Line, go bankrupt in 1857?
Might we not better suppose that far from being guaranteed profitable, shipping was actually risky business, that not everyone wanted to get into?

For example, if you were a Southerner of means, which would seem the better investment to you -- building & owning a ship to transport cotton to Europe, or buying land & slaves to produce & sell cotton?
Well, the numbers clearly show that slave-grown cotton was both more profitable and more reliable than shipping.
For one thing, ships normally only depreciate, whereas slave families over time grew and appreciated.

So it could have nothing to do with alleged Washington discrimination against Southerner shippers and everything to do with where were Southerners best advised to invest their money?