If it weren’t for plantations, the North would have starved and gone naked.
If it wasn’t for slaves, the South would have done the same.
What planet are you on??? Drive through Kentucky, Georgia and South Carolina; then drive through Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois and compare land usage with staple crops. Not even close! Show me the evidence that the South was exporting corn, barley, etc to the North. Cotton was 75% of their economy per Wikipedia. The northern blockades during the war were devastating.
Follow up to post 16:
Pre-war agricultural production estimated for the Southern states is as follows (Union states in parentheses for comparison): 1.7 million horses (3.4 million), 800,000 mules (100,000), 2.7 million dairy cows (5 million), 5 million sheep (14 million), 7 million cattle (5.4 million), 15.5 million swine (11.3 million), 187 million pounds of rice, 199 million pounds of tobacco (58 million), 5 million bales of cotton, 20 million bushels of oats (138 million bushels), 31 million bushels of wheat (114 million bushels), and 280 million bushels of corn (396 million bushels).
And who were the unclothed soldiers in the war? The South! The North had most of the textile manufacturing. The Southern population was dressed in rags by end of the war. The North did just fine without “plantations”.