“routinely plundered the resources of the South”
What resources would that be?
That would be tariffs and taxes. The historical record has been sanitized, so it is understandable that most have never heard of the crony-capitalist-corruption of the Whigs. I certainly had not.
There is no doubt our nation has suffered from such schemes, even today; but few understand that the corruption began with Alexander Hamilton, progressed under Henry Clay, and exploded under Lincoln.
I will repost some of the historical evidence. We will begin with portions of the Georgia Secession Declaration:
"The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day.
"Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency.
"The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence.
"These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country. But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded—the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all."
["Georgia Secession Declaration." Avalon Project, Jan 29, 1861]
The unfair crony schemes were mostly eliminated under the Polk administration; but the Morrill Tariff returned the economy to Northern-targeted cronyism, as explained here in this short history lesson:
"As president [James Polk, who defeated the protectionist Henry Clay,] delivered on his promise in 1846 when, under the guidance of Treasury Secretary Robert J. Walker, Congress adopted a comprehensive overhaul of the tariff system featuring a moderate downward revision of rates and, importantly, the standardization of tariff categories on a tiered ad valorem schedule.
"This final feature was intended to improve the transparency of the tariff system by consolidating the somewhat convoluted list of tariff items, itself the product of many decades of lobbying and the carving out of highly specialized categories as political favors for specific companies and industries. By converting the tariff from a system that relied primarily on itemized specific duties or individually assigned ad valorem rates to a formal tiered schedule of ad valorem categories in which tariffs were assessed as a percentage of the import 's declared dollar value, Walker further limited the ability of special interests of all stripes to disguise tariff favoritism in units of volume and measurement—different tariff rates assessed by tons of iron, gallons of alcohol, yards of cord and so forth.
"The Walker reforms helped to stabilize many years of fluctuating tariff politics by instituting a moderately free trade Tariff-for-revenue system that lasted, subject to a further uniform reduction of rates in 1857, until the eve of the Civil War…
"Between December 1858 and March 1860, Morrill was inundated with letters from manufacturers and industrialists requesting favorable protective tariff rates against their foreign competitors. Many of these petitions were copied verbatim into the text of the tariff bill. The Morrill schedule also replaced the ad valorem schedule system of Walker with the reintroduction of item-by-item rates. The new schedule utilized an ad hoc mixture of individual ad valorem rates and specific duties, assessed by import units rather than volume, making its administration less transparent. While it is difficult to measure the full effect of the revisions given this change of assessment, Morrill 's equivalent rates pushed most items well above the 1846 schedule and, in several instances, to near-parity with the Black Tariff levels of 1842."
[Phillip W. Magness, "Tariffs and the American Civil War." Essential Civil War Curriculum, 2017, pp.6,8]
As aforementioned, that corrupt scheme of patronage was/is implemented by a method commonly known as "lobbying," a term supposedly coined by President Grant. Under that scheme, the beneficiaries are both the corrupt politicians, and the clients of the lobbyists who make deals with those politicians (, and, of course, the lobbyists themselves.)
As I now understand it, Southern growers, who were mostly exporters, could not benefit under the protection scheme due to Constitutional restrictions on export tariffs, while the bulk of federal expenditures of tax/tariff revenue went to the Northern states. It was a lose-lose situation.
Mr. Kalamata