[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "Your point that the trade was dominated by Northern companies is exactly correct.
That dominance began with laws restricting trade practice and financial contracts which rewarded established as well as new companies in New York City."

No, like everything else DiogenesLamp posts, it's pure rubbish & nonsense.
That's because there was nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- nothing preventing Southerners from building, owning and operating their own shipping, if they wanted to.
So SS Planter merely proves the point, beyond dispute.

And the fact is that nobody today knows what percent of US shipping in 1860 was owned by Southerners, in such major Southern ports as New Orleans and Baltimore, and there's no reason to think it was not substantial.

[DiogenesLamp]

That's because there was nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- nothing preventing Southerners from building, owning and operating their own shipping, if they wanted to.

Except those many millions of dollars of Federal subsidies holding up Northern Shipping's bottom line.

You do have a problem grasping the economics of this situation, don't you?