Yep all they had to do was buy the machinery from Northerners, or import it and pay huge tarrifs.
As for choosing not to, that was not the case. The south was industrializing, Atlanta was a railroad hub (and was later burned). Iron furnaces and foundaries existed, and it was only a matter of time until the South became self-sufficient. With that self-sufficiency would come a sharp reduction in tarrif revenue as the South imported less.
By destroying as much industry as possible, invading armies set back Southern Manufacturing development significantly.
What machinery were they importing and what was the tariff on it?
The south was industrializing, Atlanta was a railroad hub (and was later burned). Iron furnaces and foundaries existed, and it was only a matter of time until the South became self-sufficient. With that self-sufficiency would come a sharp reduction in tarrif revenue as the South imported less.
Nonsense. The south industrialized only so much as was necessary to support their agricultural industry. Louis Wigfall neatly summed up the feelings of southerners when speaking to William Russell in 1861, "We are an agrarian people; we are a primitive people. We have no cities - we don't want them. We have no literature - we don't need any yet. We have no press - we are glad of it. We have no commercial marine - no navy - we don't want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."