http://www.etymonline.com/cw/economics.htm
Here is what that source says:
Was the South economically backwards? Statistical tables can't compete with harrowing narratives of runaway slaves. Perhaps that's why economic history isn't taught in our schools. Yet the economic picture is essential for anyone who wants to really understand, rather than simply be entertained. Turner's image of ante-bellum America was an empire like the British, whose "sections" took the place of "individual kingdoms." The role of the South was to devote itself to pouring out the raw material for New England's looms and for the bulk of America's export trade. This was laid out by Alexander Hamilton's "Report on the Subject of Manufactures" (1791, the blueprint for young America's economic program), and enshrined in Henry Clay's "American System," enacted in the mid-1820s with the support of Midwestern farmers as well as North Atlantic manufacturers.
That this was done most effectively by slave labor plantations was, after about 1800, no secret to anyone -- North, South, American, British. Robert Russell, the observant British traveller, wrote that slavery was "a necessary evil attending upon the great good of cheap cotton."
The shift of so much land and effort into cotton-growing meant that the people of the South relied on the West for much of their food and livestock, and on the North Atlantic states for most of their clothing and machinery. In turn, they provided more than two-thirds of the entire nation's exports, which brought in the specie that allowed commerce and growth in all sections.
After 1830 the industrial North had become wedded, not only to the South's production of cotton, but to the institution of slave labor which made such valuable production possible." Northern factories based their profits on a steady flow of cotton.[6] The price of raw cotton was low during this period, and lagged behind the price of cotton goods. Northern bankers grew rich by extending liberal (but risky) credit to Southern planters against next year's crop. Cotton was already America's leading export by 1821. By 1850, Southern cotton accounted for nearly 60 percent of the nation's total exports, and was a major factor in Northern shipping prospects. While the looms of Lawrence and Lowell sucked up raw cotton, the ships of Boston bulged with it as they crossed the Atlantic, and their owners looked forward to increasing production on the slave plantations, which meant increased profit for them.
Northern politicians were ever ready to sacrifice whatever anti-slavery sentiments they had for the sake of a tariff deal. Rumors after the Compromise of 1850 linked it to logrolling for tariff protection. Illinois votes for the Compromise were connected to railroad land grants that Illinois obtained in 1850. Southern congressmen claimed to have won over Pennsylvania's delegation by promising to repay a vote for the Compromise with "adjustments" in the tariff rates. At the same time, the Pennsylvania legislature voted to repeal laws that handicapped efforts to recapture fugitive slaves
I must have missed the law that forced the south to give up all their other crops and any more than a token attempt at industrialization in order to grow cotton. No, the south willingly turned to cotton, because it was more profitable than anything else they could grow, and they were apparently unwilling to diversify their economy.
Northern factories based their profits on a steady flow of cotton.
And auto plants rely on a steady flow of steel. What's your point?
Northern bankers grew rich by extending liberal (but risky) credit to Southern planters against next year's crop.
Again, I'm missing the law that forced southerners to borrow money. And why were there no southern banks from which they could borrow?:
The ships of Boston bulged with it as they crossed the Atlantic, and their owners looked forward to increasing production on the slave plantations, which meant increased profit for them.
So? Any shipper at any time hopes for lots of cargo. That's their business. And why were there no southern ships for them to ship on?
All you've done is point to an integrated national economy in which everyone was profiting. If cotton farming was such a money-losing proposition, why was so much of the south dedicated to it?