“I think the decline of Charleston had more to do with a Federal invasion and destruction of capital and economic activity that they did than it did with anything Charleston did in mismanaging their businesses.”
To quote a certain poster here “You don’t know what the f*ck you’re talking about.
“In the mid-1840s, Charleston repealed its restriction against steam engines within the city, but railroad tracks still stopped at the edge of town. By then, the port had lost its edge. “Charleston was seen as a terrible port starting in the 1840s,” says Nelson. Its shallow harbor could not accommodate the new transatlantic steamships with deep drafts. The most sophisticated shipping merchants and technologies were found in the North. About 60 percent of South Carolina’s exports had to be sent in the coastwise trade to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, where the major transatlantic lines were located.
The least industrialized major city in the United States in the late antebellum years, Charleston, travelers noticed, lacked the verve and energy of other seaports. Lowcountry planters held anti-business attitudes, with the exception of agricultural commerce. A southern gentleman made his money in agriculture and owned slaves. A gentleman did not own textile factories—thus benefiting from the South’s leading export—and hire white workers who could upset the order of a slave society.”
Rise and Fall and Rise: South Carolina’s Maritime History
COASTAL HERITAGE MAGAZINE
VOLUME 17 – NUMBER 2
FALL 2002
https://www.scseagrant.org/rise-and-fall-and-rise-south-carolinas-maritime-history/
I get that a lot. People who say it usually turn out to be wrong.