The Navigation Act was proposed by a Georgian and amended by a South Carolinian. Southern planters wanted US firms to control US coastal shipping. They also wanted US control over shipping to the West Indies. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and from an American nationalist point of view, it was.
You used the word "disaster." What sane human being could possibly conclude that the Navigation Act was a disaster? Why? Because it advantaged Americans rather than Britain? Because it meant a few less pennies in slave owners' pockets? Why was it a "disaster"?
Everyone in the industry knew what the rates were with and without penalties. If you don't think that provided a clue for everyone to set their rates at just below the penalties, then you are grievously underestimating the intelligence of business people.
American firms were competing with each other. It only took one to charge less, and the collusion would break down and rates would fall. And if everyone knew what was going on, then British ship captains knew enough to avoid practices that would mean incurring penalties. They'd be out of the picture, so far as coastal traffic was concerned, so why would penalties be such a large factor in American rates?
No shipper wants to cross the ocean with an empty ship, and so they always carried cargo both ways. What were these British ships going to carry as cargo to the South? All the stuff the Southerners wanted was greatly taxed, and so wouldn't be as easy to sell as it would in a free trade or low tariff market.
Ships tended to bring goods from Europe to Northern ports because there were more people living there and hence, a larger market. It made sense to pick up cotton from those ports as well, rather than make the longer trip to pick up cotton from Southern ports where there was less of a market for imported goods in the less populous cotton states.
The British ships would also be limited as to their profit potential by being required to dock at only one port. They couldn't sell some product in one, and move to another, it all had to come off at whatever single port they chose.
Bad for England. Good for America. You realize that if the Navigation Act hadn't been passed in 1817 and British goods were being dropped off in every port, sooner or later the country would have passed the bill. It only looked like a horrible thing to people who didn't have to live with the alternative.
Rail Road iron and Rail Cars/Engines would be cheaper. Iron products in general would be cheaper. The things that were protected by tariffs would have all come in cheaper than what they could be bought for with the tariffs in place.
But if you were an American who wanted to ship goods from New Orleans to Charleston, it wouldn't have been cheaper to do so on British ships.
Your point seems to be that without the Navigation Act, Britain could penetrate much further into US markets and displace US manufactures. Good for Britain. Bad for the US. Bad for Southern manufacturers, no less than for Northern manufacturers.
Also there is the factor of how many people want to do business with people who really really hate them and consider them immoral?
I make a point to boycott businesses that come out against the NRA (founded by Union officers) or other conservative organizations. I don't doubt there was some sentiment to do that in the old South.
No, they were too busy defending slavery, just like you.
You remind me of a lunatic who thinks he invented a time machine. The machine is defective, so he keeps getting confused about what year it is. So it's madness upon madness and you think everything that was true today was true in 1860 (and many things that weren't true in 1860 are true today).
I am learning details of the cotton pipeline that adds to your thoughts. Factoring houses acted as agents for the planters and sold the cotton to whoever presented the best price. In many cases this was done on paper, and a specific consignment of cotton was not held for a specific buyer. Instead, cotton was sent by riverboat down to Gulf ports, where it MIGHT be sent directly to England or Spain, but often went to New York first. Why? Because a better price might be had in New York. If not, the ship went on across the Atlantic.
I have yet to find ANY direct correlation between exports and imports. Of course a ship owner would not want to make a return trip home empty, but who paid that freight could be completely different than who paid for the first leg of the voyage.