But you also keep telling us that the reason New York became preeminent was because of its superior location, superior harbor depth, superior transportation links to the interior and capitalists who were willing to take more risks. And that they had warehouses. Add up all of those and the navigation laws seem pretty small potatoes, especially since there was nothing in them that would have prevented southern business interests from taking advantage of the same laws, had they cared to so invest their capital. But they didn't. Instead they concentrated on agricultural production and enjoyed the highest per capita income in the country because of it.
Did you guys forget why we were talking about this?
The whole point of this was that Southern investments were turning away from plantations and slave labor, and serious improvements were being introduced to allow them to compete with Northern shipping.
Agreed, and to a certain extent early Charleston residents did just that. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, Charleston exported corn, rice, indio, & timber among other things. Foreign flagged ships from all over Europe made regular stops in Charleston harbor bringing in finished goods, cloth, and a surprising [to me anyway] amount of hard liquor. I've got some numbers that I'll post later that details the Charleston planters thirst for imported booze. It explains much about their incoherence when it came to matters of developing an internal infrastucture or internal improvements.