[DiogenesLamp]

No Southern or Northern citizen paid one red cent in taxes to the Federal Government.

Stop with the sophistry. You know exactly what I mean. The South paid the vast bulk of the Revenue for the Federal Government, even though they only had 1/4th of the citizens of the nation.

Today we call that "taxes."

Southerners were perfectly free to ship all of the cotton they wanted to Europe and use British or French, or Chinese merchant ships to carry that cargo to Europe.

And pay huge and ruinous fines to the Federal government for doing so. This is like Barack Obama saying people could build power plants, but he would make sure they went bankrupt if they did so.

If there was a Southern owned ship that they wanted to hire to transport that cotton, they were free to do so.

Southern Shipping and ship building companies were forced out of business by subsidies paid by the Federal government to Northern owned shipping companies and a deliberate preference from the New York shipping companies towards using North Eastern ships and shipping companies.

The Northern power brokers were just as protectionist to their shipping industries as they were to their other industries, and they held the upper hand in congress. The South was never going to get equity in a system where the Northern interests could keep voting themselves money out of the Southern pockets.

[BroJoeK]

Bull Snipe: "No Southern or Northern citizen paid one red cent in taxes to the Federal Government."

DiogenesLamp: "Stop with the sophistry."

That's rich, coming from Mr. Sophist-ocles himself.

DiogenesLamp: "The South paid the vast bulk of the Revenue for the Federal Government, even though they only had 1/4th of the citizens of the nation."

Now there is real sophistry!
If by "the South" you mean the Deep Cotton South, then roughly 10% of voters provided 50% of the nation's exports.
By why be so generalized?
Specifically, about 1/2 of 1% of US voters (Deep South slave holders) shipped 50% of US exports.

So let's ask if DiogenesLamp believes those 1/2 of 1% should have ruled over everyone else?
And if so, why exactly?

Bull Snipe: "Southerners were perfectly free to ship all of the cotton they wanted to Europe and use British or French, or Chinese merchant ships to carry that cargo to Europe."

DiogenesLamp: "And pay huge and ruinous fines to the Federal government for doing so."

Total rubbish, as has been pointed out elsewhere, US law only specified US flag ships in intra-state commerce, not in foreign exports & imports.
Further, there was nothing preventing those intercoastal ships from being Southern owned & operated.

1860 steamer Planter, Southern owned & operated:

DiogenesLamp: "Southern Shipping and ship building companies were forced out of business by subsidies paid by the Federal government to Northern owned shipping companies and a deliberate preference from the New York shipping companies towards using North Eastern ships and shipping companies."

Federal subsidies affected only a small number of specialized ships used in carrying US mail overseas, had no effect on the many hundreds of ships needed to transport US cotton & other exports.
As to why Southern ship production declined, the rise of heavy-metal steamships didn't sit well with Southerners like, for example, Texas Senator Louis Wigfall:

"We are an agricultural people; we a primitive but civilized people.
We have no cities-we don't want them.
We have no literature-we don't need any yet.
We have no press-we are glad of it.
We have no commercial marine-no navy-we don't want them.
Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels.
We want no manufactures; we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes.
As long as we have our cotton, our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from these nations with which we are in amity."

So there is the real villain of this story: Southern planters, not ethereal "New York Power Brokers".