The only reason domestic shipping was competitive at all was because of the Navigation act of 1817 which put heavy penalties on the use of Foreign ships or crew.
With independence, that statute disappears and instantly makes foreign ships and crew a relative bargain."
We should note that it has taken DiogenesLamp several posts to even begin getting his history right on this.
But he's still not quite there.
In fact the 1817 Navigation Act taxed only transportation of goods between US ports.
Foreign shippers could still carry goods to or from, say, New York and overseas markets.
The Navigation Act of 1817 made intracoastal packets all US owned -- no not Northern owned, US owned.
Nothing prevented Southerners from major ports like New Orleans, Baltimore or even the smaller Charleston from building, owning or operating their own packets.
And there's no reason to suppose they didn't.
DiogenesLamp: "The South was saving a little bit of money by using US Shipping, but they would save far more by using foreign ships at non protectionist rates.
This would of course, instantly screw the us Shipping industry which had grown accustomed to all those gouged prices since 1817."
Remember, we're only talking about intracoastal packet ships here, not transatlantic freighters.
No law stopped larger foreign ships from picking up cargoes in New Orleans, Baltimore or New York for transportation to overseas markets.
And that makes your economic hypotheses a lot of stuff & nonsense, FRiend.
Intracoastal packet, SS Planter, built in Charleston SC, 1860, loaded with 1,000 bales of cotton.
The US cotton crop in 1860 was approx. 5 million bales worth just under $200 million.