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First, is that wrong? Is taking advantage of a good harbor immoral?

Morality has got nothing to do with it. It is an objective fact that the prime purpose of a harbor is to trade. New York is wealthy because it had a harbor that facilitated trade with Europe. It has now diversified, but the source of it's original wealth is that harbor.

Second, contrary to what people now think, New York was long a major industrial center -- right up until the time the country as a whole started deindustrialization.

So which came first? The Industry, or the Harbor? My understanding is that the one was the inevitable consequence of the other.

A large population meant that New York was incredibly productive economically.

I have a concept I would like to convey to you, but i'm not sure I can. I guess the closest approximation is this word "synergy", but that doesn't quite get the point across. Let me try a different way.

Suppose you have an engine. The engine has friction and it has load. The energy put into the engine must exceed the amount necessary to overcome the Friction and whatever load you wish to place on it.

What happens to an engine that is running under a load if you cut the fuel supply to it by some amount? It stalls and loses speed, if it does not falter and stop.

That is what was going to happen to New York in 1861 without a war. Think of it as a money engine that derives a significant portion of it's fuel from trade.

You can throw it about so liberally, that you don't notice the "virtue signalling," the pompous and phony moralizing, in your own posts and in every rant about the evil Republicans and big city people.

You are right. I don't notice any "virtue signaling" in my posts. I can't actually see an angle to how someone could be "virtue signalling" by defending the rights of slave owning states to leave the union. You will have to explain your angle on this to me.

Mostly I get opprobrium instead of admiration, so there isn't much "reward" to be had for this sort of virtue signalling, which defeats the entire purpose of virtue signaling (to be thought better of by everyone else) as I understand the term. :)

I think the South was violating the rights of man by forcing people to work against their will, and I think the North violated the rights of man by subjugating an unwilling populace. The South's motives were plainly greed, but the North's motives have been deliberately disguised as some false moral crusade. The North's crusade spilled a very great amount of blood. The South's practice created human misery, and no doubt spilled some blood, but not on the same scale as did the North.

Slavery was eventually going to die of natural causes, but the remnants of the North's war on the South, and the precedents it established, have lingered much longer than slavery ever would have.

I think the South was violating the rights of man by forcing people to work against their will, and I think the North violated the rights of man by subjugating an unwilling populace.

We "subjugated unwilling populaces" when we defeated Germany and Japan. That didn't make it wrong.

The South's motives were plainly greed, but the North's motives have been deliberately disguised as some false moral crusade.

The secessionists motives have been deliberately disguised as some false libertarian crusade. And that goes on until today.

There certainly was a moral element in the US's going to war. That can't be minimized or ignored -- however much crackpot Marxism you apply.

The North's crusade spilled a very great amount of blood. The South's practice created human misery, and no doubt spilled some blood, but not on the same scale as did the North.

Who started the war, anyway? Who fired first? Who is to say that the war was all the fault of the US? And who is to say that it was worse than slavery?

Secessionists went to war -- they said, among other reasons -- because they didn't want to become slaves of Northerners. They were wrong about what was in the cards, but doesn't that prove that slavery was worse than war?

Slavery was eventually going to die of natural causes, but the remnants of the North's war on the South, and the precedents it established, have lingered much longer than slavery ever would have.

Slavery could have gone on for another 50 or 75 years. Segregation went on for another century. Northern economic domination lasted about 110 or 120 years.

That economic domination wasn't all the doing of the Yankees, but it looks like in terms of duration, though perhaps not of severity or injustice, the two were about equal.

DiogenesLamp: "What happens to an engine that is running under a load if you cut the fuel supply to it by some amount?
It stalls and loses speed, if it does not falter and stop.
That is what was going to happen to New York in 1861 without a war.
Think of it as a money engine that derives a significant portion of it's fuel from trade."

A false analogy leading to mistaken conclusion.
That's because in, let's say, March 1861, the new Confederacy was outnumbered by the Union voters, 10 to 1, meaning the potential drop in demand for US imports was just 10%.
Yes, the loss of cotton exports could reduce total United States exports, theoretically, by 50%, but New York would see, at most 1/3 of that, since the vast majority of US cotton shipped directly from Southern cities like New Orleans & Mobile.

But what about all those other "Southern products"?
Well, the reduction in all so-called "Southern products" in 1861 was $163 million vs. 1860, but, $160 million of that was just cotton!
Non-cotton "Southern products" net-net fell only $3 million.
And outside the South, Union exports rose $61 million in 1861.
Point is: even as early as 1861 the Union in general and New York specifically was quickly adjusting and adapting to the loss of Confederate cotton.
So there's no reason to think it would have ever permanently crippled a city as dynamic as New York.

DiogenesLamp: "Slavery was eventually going to die of natural causes, but the remnants of the North's war on the South, and the precedents it established, have lingered much longer than slavery ever would have."

No, that's totally misconceived.
So see why, suppose a historical hypothetical: that secession was declared in 1861 after the reelection of President Buchanan, and suppose Democrat Buchanan had allowed the Confederacy to "depart in peace" taking with it what they wanted, i.e., Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona & even California.
Then let's suppose that Confederate military prowess was spent on, not fighting the Union, but on what were then called "filibusters" -- adventures in the Caribbean, Central & South America to establish new lands for American slavery.
And let's assume that with Confederate government backing, these new "filibusters" were highly successful.
Now look at hypothetical maps of the North America and the world.:

Given this 19th century victory of slavery and empires, what conceivable pressures -- economic, social, political, etc. pressures -- would ever force nations to abolition?