Charleston shipbuilding started to decline before New York really took off as a national port (given a major boost by the Erie Canal and later the railroads). The canal gave New York a massive hinterland to draw on.
Charleston didn't have that. The city and its elites were happy with what they had (and concerned that they might lose it). It didn't want to develop the kind of maritime or commercial culture that other parts of the country did. Charleston businessmen weren't as obsessed as you are with New York or as convinced about the necessity of taking down the Big Apple.
Yes, but once more money than you can sensibly spend on increasing production starts rolling in, you won't have a choice but to invest it in something else.
The cotton money wasn't going to keep coming in forever once new producers got into the game. Even if the boom had lasted longer, think of gold rush lands: they don't put their money into industry (not immediately). It's not an attractive way of making money, not something they have experience with, and not something they want to learn. In time, eventually, industry may develop, but not while the money's rolling in or during the bust which follows the boom.
Obviously, you're obsessed with your idea. You've gone on about it at length, but it's not something you can prove, and you're not going to convince many people who don't already agree with you. Why not move on to something else that might actually have some use?
Now see, this is a very good point. That Erie Canal opened up a huge area of commerce for New York, and it contributed heavily to the commercial success that New York was going to be due to the destiny of Geography.
But that still doesn't address how all the Southern trade money got routed through New York. The way I see it, what basically concentrated trade through New York was that navigation act of 1817 which absolutely forbid foreign ships from carrying cargo between US Ports.
New York was closer, and unless a cargo was heading directly to Charleston, there was no reason to go there because of that Law. Had that law not been in place, Ships could have stopped in New York, than carried other trade goods South to Charleston. This would have been a more direct exchange of products than dragging the normal Southern trade 800 miles northward.
Charleston didn't have that. The city and its elites were happy with what they had (and concerned that they might lose it). It didn't want to develop the kind of maritime or commercial culture that other parts of the country did.
I have read articles arguing that by 1861, they did want that. The Charleston harbor had just been dredged to allow for deep drafting ships to use it. In the early months of secession, the economy there was booming because of all the newly increased trade.
The cotton money wasn't going to keep coming in forever once new producers got into the game. Even if the boom had lasted longer, think of gold rush lands: they don't put their money into industry (not immediately). It's not an attractive way of making money, not something they have experience with, and not something they want to learn. In time, eventually, industry may develop, but not while the money's rolling in or during the bust which follows the boom.
No, Cotton was not going to last forever, but by the time it petered out, a wise group of wealthy people would have used their profits to invest in other businesses. We can only make general predictions about what they would have done, but it seems reasonable to me to believe they would recognize that they would eventually have to do something different.
Obviously, you're obsessed with your idea. You've gone on about it at length, but it's not something you can prove, and you're not going to convince many people who don't already agree with you.
I believe it is something that can be proved, and the information I have noticed in the last year makes a very good case for it. The problem is that "proved" is in the eye of the beholder, and a lot of people simply do not want to look at this theory because of deep emotional attachment to what they prefer to believe.
It is more satisfying to believe that the United States was a moral nation and that it only fought for good. Nobody wants to look closely at an ugly alternative explanation. It is depressing.
But the ugly alternative explains a lot of things better than does the pretty official narrative.
Why not move on to something else that might actually have some use?
I think this is useful. Over the course of this last year, I have come to realize that two discussion topics which I didn't think had any connection with each other are in fact intimately related.
The Topics are "the Washington/North East Power corridor" and the Civil War. The "Establishment" which everyone has been bitching about mostly for the last year, is in fact that same group of people who make up the Washington/North East power corridor.
Billionaires, Major industries, Universities, and various other suckers on the public teat, who find government excess spending to be essential to their needs.
Surely you have noticed how the "establishment" always seems to be able to get what they want, no matter what the voters want? Have you been noticing this RINO version of the Obamacare repeal? How did that happen? Who asked for this?
The "Establishment" asked for this. Sloughing off responsibility for medical costs onto the Fedgov helps a lot of industries with influence in Washington.
There is effectively a Washington/ North East power cartel that rules whichever way it chooses, and they control the media.
Civil War? That's where this confluence of crony capitalism and the "deep state" began.
“You can lead a lunatic to reason but you can’t make him think”
*sigh*