The ignorant rarely understand their own ignorance because they are too busy blaming others.
Here is your error. The article I cited said that
>During 1860 the imports of the South were valued at $331 million; those of the North at $31 million.
Source:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761557415/Confederate_States_of_America.html
I told you before, and I will be glad to tell you again that you made the mistake of adding 331 and 31, coming up with 362 and launching off on a preposterous tirade about how that just could not possibly be accurate numbers of consumption since it was so totally out of proportion to some measure that you pulled out of your armpit.
You should have said something like, 'hey, what do those numbers represent', rather than being so quick to rant and wanting to make others look silly.
I will tell you again. The $331 million is a total of goods coming into the South (imports) from both European as well as American sources.
The $31, I am guessing here, is likely the amount of European goods directly consumed in the North.
"Why would goods from one section of the country pass through the customs house of another port in the country?"
What does that mean?
"Didn't the customs houses have enough? Did goods that traveled by train have to clear customs as well?"
What does that mean?
"Your fairy tales hold no water, just like most of the rest of your crap."
You ought to say off the sugar.
Even if we acccept that the sum of $331 million in southern imports from Europe and the north and $31 million in northern imports only coincidentally adds up to the $362 million in foreign imports stated in the Treasury Report, it still means that if $31 million in imports was consumed by the north, the other 90+% consumed by the south and it again fails the common sense test.
And while you're quick to point to the warehousing and navigation acts as causes for the decline of southern shipping, I find this:
"Charleston was blessed with an excellent harbor, yet South Carolinians built and invested in few seagoing vessels. Instead, they depended on ships owned by Londoners or Bostonians. New Englanders increasingly dominated American shipbuilding and maritime investing. Bostonians bought vessel shares in the way that modern investors buy corporate stock shares."
"P.C. Coker, an independent scholar of local maritime history, has described the thinking of a typical colonial Carolina merchant who had 1,200 pounds to invest in the 1730s. With that sum, a merchant could build and outfit a 200-ton seagoing vessel, but he would risk his investment with storms, wars, fires, groundings, and pirates. Or he could pour his money into a dozen slaves and a 500-acre plantation, where he could grow rice and indigo, which fetched high prices. The choice was simple: purchase slaves and a plantation and charter someone else’s ship to send produce to Europe."
(...)
"By 1800, Charleston was steadily losing maritime trade to other cities. Greater precision in navigation and improved vessels allowed ship captains to sail directly from Europe to New York. Ships no longer had to travel the southerly route via the Caribbean and Charleston. The faster transatlantic route between New York and Europe left Charleston out of the loop."
"Many British and New England merchant firms in the 1820s began avoiding Charleston because free black seamen could not enter the city without a hefty bond being posted."
http://www.scseagrant.org/library/library_coaher_fall02.htm
So, according to this, it was the south's own short-sightedness and basic greed that led them to fail to build their own ships, and it was a combination of their racial paranoia and improved navigation techniques that led British ships to steer clear of the place.