Utter nonsense. For your analogy to be correct you needed to show that almost all of Wal-Marts goods were funneled through a single distribution center, located at a point thousands of miles away from their ultimate customers. For your analogy to be correct, Charleston and Mobile and New Orleans were just as logical distribution centers as New York.
Who ever said they can't handle them? I'm sure if it was economically more efficient to ship direct to those cities rather than distribute over land, they could have handled a large capacity and certainly would have accomodated that demanded in the long run.
Yet you would have us believe that it was economically more efficient for those ships to show up empty to pick up their cotton rather than arrive loaded to the gunwales with the imports you claim that the south was clamoring for. And it was more efficient to land those imports in Northern ports and ship those imports overland while sending the exports directly from southern ports to their overseas customers. Good plan.
Your model is simplistic, naive, and wholly mistaken in its key assumptions, non-seq. That is why it fails you so frequently.
But you consistently claim that the bulk of the exports were southern agricultural products. How could the North produce enough exports to load those ships that landed all those southern-bound imports? By your model a significant portion had to head home empty. Or, equally likely by your model, land all those imports destined for southern consumers in New York, head empty for Charleston, and the load cotton. Because, after all, we have to agree that those ships arrived in southern ports to load cotton at some time. They either arrived full or empty. Based on the tariffs collected then it's pretty apparent that they didn't arrive full. If they arrived empty then that means that they either left Europe empty or they dropped off their in-bound cargo in the Northnern ports. And you would have us believe that it made more sense, because of the Warehousing Act of 1846 1854 to leave all those goods in the North, sail to the south to load cotton, and then send those goods south later. Your model is simplistic, illogical, and totally asinine. That is why it's so funny.
If rail is more efficient than sea at shipping, sure it does.
Prove it.
Technically not, considering that NYC, though by far the largest import site, was not the only import site. Thus a distribution system suffices. But since you insist, I need only point your attention to Wal-Mart circa 1975 where a single distribution center, Bentonville, served about 100 wal-mart stores hundreds upon hundreds of miles away from it in about a dozen different states.
For your analogy to be correct, Charleston and Mobile and New Orleans were just as logical distribution centers as New York.
Charleston et al did not have large warehousing capacity. New York did. Just the same, in the 1970's your average city in a wal-mart state did not have even a regional wal-mart distribution center. The rural hick town in the middle of nowhere known as Bentonville Arkansas did.
Yet you would have us believe that it was economically more efficient for those ships to show up empty to pick up their cotton rather than arrive loaded to the gunwales with the imports you claim that the south was clamoring for.
Why do you assume that every ship to arrive in Charleston came directly from Europe, making an empty voyage from there? The simple fact is that shipping does not work that way. Ships went where there was business, not on some prearranged two-point route by way of a prearranged schedule. A ship could easily go from Liverpool to New York, drop off a fresh cargo of British imports into NYC warehouses, pick up a domestic load out of other warehouses for Charleston, sail up the coast and pick up a load of Cotton in Charleston, then sail off to Hamburg to unload that cotton and pick up something entirely different bound for Lisbon. Heck, some ships left NYC bound for South America or practically any other place in the world where there was business for shipping something.
And it was more efficient to land those imports in Northern ports and ship those imports overland while sending the exports directly from southern ports to their overseas customers.
So all of the overseas consumers of cotton lived in Liverpool, London, and Hamburg? WRONG. The exact same thing was happening on the other side as well. Britain had the world's first warehousing system decades before the U.S. and similarly served as a warehousing hub for the European end. Cotton from Charleston could end up in a London warehouse, only to be removed and shipped to Hamburg and unloaded on a train for practically anywhere within the continent.
But you consistently claim that the bulk of the exports were southern agricultural products.
They were, non-seq. If you doubt this prove me wrong with the export stats.
How could the North produce enough exports to load those ships that landed all those southern-bound imports?
They don't have to produce any exports to load ships. ALl they need is something to remove from warehousing, of which NYC had an abundance. That could be some domestic product bound for elsewhere in the country. It could be some previous import bound for reexportation. It could be some previous import bound for somewhere else down the coast. There is no rule saying that a ship dropping off imports must necessarily pick up exports and exports alone as its next cargo.
By your model a significant portion had to head home empty.
No it didn't. It could easily pick up a domestic load and ship it up the coast.
Or, equally likely by your model, land all those imports destined for southern consumers in New York, head empty for Charleston, and the load cotton.
Not likely at all. The entire point of warehousing is to provide time for a buyer to be located in order to finance the tariff. In that case, it would be stupid for an importer to go to a non-warehouse port first. The smart thing to do would be to drop off the new imports, for which there is no immediate buyer yet, in a warehouse then pick up previous imports out of the warehouse for which buyers existed and ship them domestically up the coast to those buyers.
Because, after all, we have to agree that those ships arrived in southern ports to load cotton at some time. They either arrived full or empty.
Yeah, and they arrived full of all sorts of products. Those products were either domestic or had been imported already via a warehousing system.
Based on the tariffs collected then it's pretty apparent that they didn't arrive full.
How so? Tariff payments make absolutely no record of at least three significant types of cargo: domestic goods shipped domestically for consumption at another location, domestic goods shipped domestically for exportation from another location, and imported goods for which the tariff has already been paid from warehousing.
Your model fails to account for ANY of these events. That is why I called it simplistic and that is why, in all accuracy, it persists in being exactly that.
Fair enough. In many circumstances rail will be more efficient that shipping for at least three reasons:
1. Rail moves at a faster rate across the same distance. Railroad shipping averages about 45 mph and ranges between about 30 and 55 mph. Given those speeds, a ship would have to average the unrealistic level of 40 knots to move faster than a railroad.
2. Rail cuts significantly off of distance travelled over continents, making the route more direct. A trip by railroad from New York to New Orleans is more direct and significantly faster than any trip by sea due to the Florida peninsula. A railroad trip across isthmus of darien in pre-canal days to ships on the pacific side cut out the voyage around the entire continent of South America, meaning a day's rail journey cut out a month or more from a journey by sea.
3. Rail is less susceptible to natural disasters. Storms and hurricanes at sea, as well as simpler danger such as reefs, running aground, and collision make the possibility of losing a ship and its cargo a relatively high one. Rail, by comparison, travels on a fixed guideway over land. Though susceptible to derailings, the opportunity for disasters of this sort is by its very nature smaller than that of losing a ship.