You clearly haven't studied this issue. The Federal government provided subsidies to Northern Shipping companies, who also had what would be considered monopolies in modern times. You do know how monopolies work, don't you?
The South used to have several shipyards that built ships, but over time they all closed down because they could not compete with the Northern shipyards, which the government favored. Government subsidies gives any company that receives them a financial advantage over those who don't.
What convinced them not to invest in those things was the large profits that could be made in the cotton industry with far less risk.
You need to read more about what happened. After South Carolina seceded, Charleston became a boom town with every hotel booked, every dock hired, and a massive inward flood of money and people from the North began.
There were projects to build more warehouses, hotels, homes, docks, and everything else. I read a newspaper account of it from the Charleston Mercury, and people were amazed and flabbergasted at all the capital investment pouring into the city.
And of course New York didn't like it.
So many myths, so little time.
Between 1848 and 1858, Congress gave subsidies to 3 shipping lines. In 1858 they cut all subsidies for shipping.
Because many ships historically have been capable of serving both commercial and naval or military purposes, the government always has had an interest in the ocean-shipping business—between 1848 and 1858, for example, the federal government paid three shipping lines more than $11 million in subsidies1—but the government’s actions in relation to the building and operation of merchant vessels remained ad hoc and transitory prior to World War I.
Source: https://www.independent.org/article/2003/11/01/how-the-federal-government-got-into-the-ocean-shipping-business/
Yes, I know how monopolies work. The biggest lesson is that they tend to make a lot of money. But here is a story about the most prominent shipping line of the day the lobbied for subsidies. They got the subsidies based on the fact that they carried the trans Atlantic mail. They got subsidies between 1853 and 1857, and went bankrupt. You get that? They went bankrupt! Some monopoly. Read all about it here: . https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol05/tnm_5_1_19-32.pdfG
The South used to have several shipyards that built ships, but over time they all closed down because they could not compete with the Northern shipyards, which the government favored. Government subsidies gives any company that receives them a financial advantage over those who don't.
No they didn’t all close down. I don’t know of any that closed down. Newport Va was probably the biggest shipyard in the nation then as it is now. Charleston had shipyards that mostly built shallow draft coastal ships as opposed to blue water ocean going vessels. With Charleston, on of the biggest complaints was the use of slave labor which drove down the pay for skilled ship builders who headed to northern ship yards for more money.