If that’s the case, why didn’t those ships go to Southern ports before the war? Do I have to post the 1859 tariff map again?
You are failing to grasp what would have happened in the absence of a war. The South would have continued to gain wealth, and the North would have been suffering a massive economic decline.
LOL. The North was growing fast before the war, and only grew faster after. The South was a backwater because of the slave system and King Cotton. There were a handful of very wealthy and the vast majority of whites lived hand to mouth.
You remind me of an interview I saw years ago with Shelby Foote. He said as a kid growing up in Mississippi, he and his friends would fantasize about what they would have done to make sure the South won the Civil War. You seem to play the same game on revising facts to make the South like like they were not the idiots they were.
If I explain this to you, will you remember it? I'm getting tired of playing these stupid little games where you pretend not to understand something.
Why didn't they go to Southern ports before the war?
The taxes are the same no matter where they land, and Charleston is 800 miles further South, which would take an additional week of sailing. With no additional profit to be made, why would they go anywhere so far out of their way? And foreign ships can only carry trade to one port.
The situation changes dramatically after secession when you drop the tariffs from (Union)35-50% down to (Confederacy)10-13%. Now companies can make an additional 25-37% profit, and with the "Navigation act of 1817" no longer constraining their travel to other American Ports, their profits and potential profits could increase tremendously.
Foreign ships would be able to undercut Northern ships and make even more profits because of the greatly reduced tariff costs.
Big money for foreign and American ships trading in the South *AFTER* secession, but no benefit from doing it before secession.
That's what happens when the South was pumping 65 million per year into their economy just from taxes, and many millions more besides from Northern control of shipping and protectionist laws forcing the South to buy Northern products.
After the war? The entire South had become one big slave for the North.
He said as a kid growing up in Mississippi, he and his friends would fantasize about what they would have done to make sure the South won the Civil War.
I don't know what they could have done to win. The North outnumbered them by about five times, so it's very difficult to beat such heavy odds against you.
They could have "won" just by staying out of war, but since I have learned all the things Lincoln was doing and would do to make certain there was a war, I don't think "staying out of war" with an opponent five times bigger than you was a realistic option.
They probably should have just taken the short term losses and refused to use any Northern shipping or buy Northern products. Eventually they might have been able to extricate themselves from Northern control of their industries, but it would have been a hard thing for them to do, if it was even possible.