I don’t agree.
It wasn’t, at least from the industrialization baron standpoint, that the North had the ability or desire to step on the South to prevent industrialization.
Much of that early industrialization of the South was being done by Yankees!
It wasn’t seen as competition (at this time, the real competitor was Europe, mostly Great Britain). Is was seen as expansion.
Economically, real progress could have been made across the country, all making the titans of early industry even richer.
But blast it all! That Yankee Eli Whitney just had to invent the cotton gin, which propelled an already dying slavery into new life.
Not the entire North, just the North Eastern power barons who owned the existing Industries. If the South had achieved independence, about 200 million per year of capitalization would have moved into the South, while that same 200 million per year would be subtracted from the North Eastern economy.
New York's position as the focal point of commerce would have been severely damaged.
But blast it all! That Yankee Eli Whitney just had to invent the cotton gin, which propelled an already dying slavery into new life.
This is true. Slavery was not very profitable until Whitney invented the cotton gin. Then it became highly lucrative.