Sure I "get" that you've been thoroughly victimized by modern education into buying Marxist propaganda, hook line & sinker.
Here's what you need to understand.
Outside of Ten Commandments and other such biblical injunctions, all laws are man-made, all are imperfect in both conception and results.
And all generally followed from bad results after people did what they thought was a good thing, certainly good for them.
So the first questions we need to ask are, did these alleged "robber barons" break existing laws of their time, or were laws written after the fact to stop what voters saw as unhappy results?
Second, if "robber barons" did allegedly break existing laws, were they prosecuted and what were the results?
Third, how much of "robber barons" wealth came from legitimate business practices, inventions and negotiations versus their criminal behavior?
My guess is that an objective look would reveal less "robber" and more hard work under the laws of the time.
Indeed, I'd apply the same moral standards as to antebellum slave-holders: most obeyed the laws most of the time, and so should not be condemned if the laws themselves were unjust or just inadequate.
In Northern states slavery was abolished peacefully and gradually, no need for violence or confiscations of property.
Likewise with "robber barons" -- if laws needed to be changed, or better enforced, I would not automatically condemn people who did their best under existing standards.
DiogenesLamp: "I said there appears to have been a massive increase in corruption that seems to have began with the Civil War.
I conjecture that it is the crony capitalism that initiated the war which redefined the normal way of doing business subsequent to the war."
I have no problems with conjecture or speculations, so long as they are identified as such.
Everyone has a right to their opinions...
But I've seen nothing in the way of facts or statistics to justify your conjecture here.
DiogenesLamp: "This did not make any sense to me until I learned of how the laws were jiggered to favor the New England States and New England ships and shipping.
I then realized a bunch of that trade would be effectively shut off and redistributed to Southern ports if the South became a separate nation."
But here's the key fact you need to understand: Federal laws were not jiggered against the South, period.
And the reason is simple: the South ran Washington DC.
No laws got passed or "jiggered" without Southern approval.
Further the mechanism by which minority Southerners ruled in Washington DC was their political alliance with Northern Big-City Democrat bosses, i.e., Tammany Hall.
So the Slave-Power and Tammany Hall wrote laws to suit themselves, and you claim post-war corruption was greater?
I don't think so.
And you claim the South didn't like those laws?
No again.
DiogenesLamp: "The only way their financial problems could be remedied was to stop the South from becoming independent, and so I believe they brought every possible pressure to bear on Lincoln in an effort to convince Him to stop the South from forming it's own nation. "
More conjecture & speculation, right?
In fact, Lincoln made no efforts before Fort Sumter to stop anything, and that's just what he told secessionists in his first inaugural.
Neither did Lincoln's predecessor, Buchanan, but Buchanan did attempt to resupply Fort Sumter in January, which Lincoln again attempted in April.
In January Buchanan's resupply ship after receiving secessionist artillery fire simply withdrew, no further actions.
But in April Confederates were better prepared for a much stronger military operation, and so started Civil War.
DiogenesLamp: "The Blockade wasn't created for any significant military purpose, it was created entirely for economic reasons.
It was created entirely to keep European economic trade from being established with the South, to the detriment of New England Trade."
More conjecture & speculation.
In fact, General Scott's "Anaconda Plan" was created years before the war -- indeed former Secretary of War Jefferson Davis may well have been aware of it.
It's purposes were both military and economic, but for the first year and more it was largely ineffective, since up to 90% of the ships which tried to run it got through.
Therefore the South's economy was not significantly affected by the blockade.
It was however very seriously changed by Confederates' own embargo on cotton exports, resulting in eventual burning of 2.5 million bales -- half an annual crop.
The Confederate economy also dramatically changed when converted from cotton growing to food production for the Army.
Finally, here's a key point for you to grasp: between April 1861 and April 1865 the Confederacy on any day could have stopped the war on much better terms than the "unconditional surrender" they received at Appomattox Court House.
Any and all the economic issues you claim were so important to them could have been reasonably negotiated away, but they never did.
And the reason is?
Because all such issues are not what really mattered to Confederate ruling elites.
When you own the lawmakers, you can tailor make laws to support your businesses... And they did.
Second, if "robber barons" did allegedly break existing laws, were they prosecuted and what were the results?
I refer you to Hillary as a recent example of how this works out in practice.
In Northern states slavery was abolished peacefully and gradually, no need for violence or confiscations of property.
And the same would have eventually occurred in the Southern states had people left them alone. I have read about how the abolition movement took shape since the Declaration of Independence kickstarted it, and it's outcome was inevitable.
It would have happened in the border states before it got to the deeper South, but the social dynamic were impossible to stop. Many of the Slaveowners had become wealthy enough to feel guilty over their source of income.
Charles Dickens covers this ground in his book "American Notes."
But Slavery was not the proximate cause of the war. It was Slave produced money that was the cause, on both sides.
Any and all the economic issues you claim were so important to them could have been reasonably negotiated away, but they never did.
So you assert.
After the first year or so, the economic cause of the war became irrelevant. Too much blood had been shed, and it had become a war of Domination and Revenge on the part of the North, and a war to get away from oppression on the part of the South.