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Moreover, those tensions had existed for decades, but it was only with the election of Lincoln that the south seceded, endlessly citing the protection of slavery and rarely mentioning these other factors that you champion.

I have always said that slavery was the primary wedge issue, but abuses on both sides with respect to slavery made it easy to look for others and cry foul. That the national landscape was dominated by discussion of slavery and its surrounding issues does not render all other problems illegitimate, or even minor. People vote with their wallets.

Pea's whole discussion of the dredging of Charleston harbor somehow panicking New York interests, for example, is utterly without support other than his say-so.

We do, however, have Lincoln's say-so.

And yeah, I think that a busy port is a pretty good indicator that it's doing well. When close to 2000 ocean-going ships are coming in and out of a harbor in a year (not to mention those steam boats), I think that any argument that southern ports were somehow not involved in international trade because they were being crushed by the New York capitalists kinda falls apart.

I don't know enough about it to extrapolate a small fact (# of ships) into the larger conclusion, and (beg your pardon for this, but) I don't trust the conclusions when others make the leap (thank Non for that). Without comparative data from other ports, the 2k figure tells me little.

We do, however, have Lincoln's say-so.

Where does Lincoln say that the dredging of Charleston harbor is panicking the New York shipping and commercial interests? Saying that he's going to try to ignore secession and keep the federal government functioning in the south by collecting tariffs and delivering mail is far from the same thing.

Without comparative data from other ports, the 2k figure tells me little.

Fair enough. How about this, then? According to the 1878 edition of the US statistical abstract, in the table "Tonnage of American and Foreign Vessels entered at the principal and other seaports of the United States from Foreign Countries, from 1853 to 1878, inclusive", in 1859, 1.8 million tons of shipping entered New York harbor. In third place, (just behind Boston) with 659,000 tons, was New Orleans. Charleston had 129K tons, Savannah 86K, Mobile 131K, and Galveston 24K.Baltimore, whose status as northern or southern port is debatable, I suppose, had 189K.

It's interesting to note that the list of "principal seaports" includes five from the south and four from the north (not counting Baltimore in either).

http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/

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