Their current wealth was just fine. Secession would have allowed them to keep more of it, 60% of which was getting grabbed by Washington DC (tariffs) and New York. (Excessive shipping costs, handling costs, insurance costs, warehousing costs, etc.)
You may not know this, but almost all of the export trade in cotton went through New York control. New York businesses completely ran the trade.
Duh. What’s closer to England, New York City or New Orleans? What was the biggest city back then, with the most ships and busiest ports?
Now what were the two largest imported commodities brought to the United States at that time? And who is using more of those two things, the north or the south?
“ Secession would have allowed them to keep more of it, 60% of which was getting grabbed by Washington DC (tariffs) and New York. (Excessive shipping costs, handling costs, insurance costs, warehousing costs, etc.)”
Because of course all those costs go away after secession, and the infrastructure cost of increasing shipping fleets and port facilities would have been negligible./s
“You may not know this, but almost all of the export trade in cotton went through New York control. New York businesses completely ran the trade.”
You may not know this, but the export of cotton generated exactly zero dollars in tariffs. You are conflating the percentage of exports produced by Southern states with the importation of goods and materials from overseas. Of course as a devote of the noble Lost Cause, you assume that virtually all imported goods went South.
To answer my own question from an earlier post, the two biggest commodities imported into the United States were iron and steel. Were Southern railroads laying lots of track? Were the shipyards in New Orleans spewing out more vessels? Which region had more farms requiring farm implements? Which side had more factories requiring industrial equipment? Which region had twice the population?
Why would secession be necessary in order to cut out the middleman? What was stopping Southern business interests from shipping direct before 1860?
Your arguments are getting weaker and weaker.