Why didn't the South industrialize? Was it because of the Navigation Act or because the North was mean to them? No, slavery and plantation crops -- especially cotton -- were so lucrative that that they drew capital and entrepreneurial effort away from industrial development. The North did not oppress the South. The South preferred to develop their slavery dependent agrarian economy instead.
As for the S.S. Baltic, the point of the Congressional subsidy was to compete with the British Cunard line on the Atlantic run, not to compete with Southern shipping lines.
You do realize that is a theory? They could have bought steam engines from England, but the existing tariff system made that more expensive and difficult. They did in fact commission the English to build them ships, and of course England was caught at it, and had to cancel the order. (during the war.)
Why didn't the South industrialize?
In context, this question proceeds under the premise that your theory stated above, is correct. We haven't conceded that point yet.
No, slavery and plantation crops -- especially cotton -- were so lucrative that that they drew capital and entrepreneurial effort away from industrial development.
And if that's true, don't most people put their money into what seems to them to be the most likely return on investment?
The North did not oppress the South. The South preferred to develop their slavery dependent agrarian economy instead.
So I have been told repeatedly, but in my course of learning about the civil war, I have found that much of what I had been told about the civil war turned out to be inaccurate and often misleading. I know this claim is a regular talking point among those that want to exonerate what the North did in invading the South. It is a variation of "they deserved it for wearing their skirt too short."
As for the S.S. Baltic, the point of the Congressional subsidy was to compete with the British Cunard line on the Atlantic run, not to compete with Southern shipping lines.
But 10 million dollars still ended up in some Northern port somewhere, didn't it?
The South was industrializing. It was just doing so at a slower pace. Producing cash crops for export was by far the most profitable economic activity in the Southern states. Therefore they did not invest resources in industries like Shipbuilding. The North, with its larger population and inability to produce lucrative cash crops, was naturally the place where labor intensive industrial development took place first.
You say the South's agrarian economy was "slavery dependent"....yet the vast majority of White Southerners owned no slaves at all. Obviously these people were earning a good living somehow....and without any dependency on slaves.