On 8/9/21 you wrote:
“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.”
So yeah, that's what you wrote.
Here's what really happened:
“South Carolina's leaders also sought to improve waterway connections from inland areas to Charleston. In 1800, the Santee Canal connected the Santee River to the headwaters of the Cooper River. As a result, the interior country's crops were brought downstream to Charleston, but this cut off the Georgetown port's potential growth. Interior farms and plantations once served by Georgetown's port now sent their produce to Charleston. But the Santee Canal was plagued by low water levels and by 1840 it was out of business...
...In the mid-1840s, Charleston repealed its restriction against steam engines within the city, but railroad tracks still stopped at the edge of town.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.”
https://www.scseagrant.org/rise-and-fall-and-rise-south-carolinas-maritime-history/
Nothing to do with tariffs, nothing to do with anything except mismanagement.
I think the reality of what you are doing is more like what Upton Sinclair noticed about trying to get people to understand something.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
When people don't want to understand, they won't. They just won't.