PeaRidge:
"Since Northern business interests were being subsidized by the U.S. government, it was going to continue to be protectionist, and not subject to competition from any nascent Southern shippers." Complete rubbish, since those protectionist tariffs protected any US manufacturer & shipper, North, South, East or West.
No law stopped Southerners from building, owning & operating their own ships, as for certain they did in large Southern cities like New Orleans and Baltimore.
And no US Federal law favored Northern owned over Southern owned ships, factories or products.
The only real issue was: where did wealthy men in each region think they could achieve the highest returns for their investment money?
The answer in the South was clearly and consistently: by investing in slaves to produce cotton, tobacco, sugar and other such cash crops.
So the real reason there were fewer Southern factories and ships was because Southerners believed slaves were a much better investment.
And in that, they were arguably correct, since by 1860 the average white slave-owning Deep South citizen was significantly better off than his Northern cousins.
PeaRidge: "By creating a three-cornered trade in the ‘cotton triangle,’ New York dragged the commerce between the Southern ports and Europe out of its normal course some two hundred miles to collect heavy handling fees upon it."
But nothing prevented Southerners from building, owning and operating their own ships, so collecting their own heavy handling fees, as for certain they did in such ports as New Orleans.
PeaRidge: "This trade might perfectly well have taken the form of direct shuttles between Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans on the one hand and Liverpool or Havre on the other, leaving New York far to one side had the Federal government not interfered in this way."
But we already know that cotton and other mid-West products certainly did ship directly from New Orleans to global customers.
In the 1850s, New Orleans shipped half of all US cotton, and only 15% of that went to Northern US manufacturers.
So the Federal Government interfered with nothing
PeaRidge: "New York developed the coastal packet lines without which it would have been extremely difficult to make the east-bound trips of the ocean packets profitable."
And New Orleans had hundreds of river boats steaming up and down the Mississippi, with all its tributaries, collecting US product to ship globally.
We know the pilot for many of those steamboats, a young Southerner, later Confederate soldier, named Samuel Clements.
So, do we claim that all those Northern Mid-west producers were in "economic bondage" to Southerners like young Sam Clements?
No, that's absurd, it was business and people did what seemed in their overall best interests.
PeaRidge: "...combined income from interests, commissions, freight, insurance, and other profits took perhaps 40 cents into New York of every dollar paid for southern cotton.
This unnecessarily inflated the cost of cotton for overseas customers and crippled the Southern farmer."
That is so patently absurd, you can't be posting with a straight face!
In fact, the decade of the 1850 was the most prosperous period in the history of mankind for average slave-holders in the Deep South.
And along with them, all the shop-keepers and skilled workers they employed.
On average they were significantly better off than their average Northern cousins.
So nobody was "crippled", but each invested their savings in such businesses as they believed would return the greatest profits.
For Southerners that was slavery.
PeaRidge: "The record shows that ports with moderate quantities of outbound freight could not keep up with the New York competition."
No, the record shows that in terms of cotton exports, New Orleans shipped as much as all other US ports combined!
PeaRidge: "As for the cotton ports themselves, they did not crave enough imports to justify packet lines until 1851, when New Orleans hosted one sailing to Liverpool."
Your data is totally flawed, since this site gives a much clearer picture of the importance of New Orleans throughout the antebellum period.
In fact, New Orleans cotton exports alone equaled all other US ports combined.
In addition, New Orleans exported product from all over the Northern mid-west, serving the same purpose for them that New York performed on the East coast.
Among those antebellum Northerners who took their produce to New Orleans for sale was a young Illinoisan named Abraham Lincoln -- twice, in 1828 and 1831.
So New Orleans was a big deal to millions who lived west of the Appalachians.
PeaRidge: "Between two-thirds and three-fourths of those imports entered through the port of New York.
This meant that any trading the South did, had to go through New York."
Because between 2/3 and 3/4 of all Americans lived in the North!
But your suggestion that all those ships from New Orleans to global markets returned home empty is a bit far-fetched.
My guess is they were just as eager to find return cargoes as any Northeasterner.
PeaRidge: "According to a Treasury report, the net revenue of all the ports of South Carolina during 1859 was a mere $234,237; during 1860 it was $309,222."
That's because South Carolina was one of the smallest and least populous of all Confederate states.
Only Florida in 1860 had fewer whites than South Carolina.
So there is no reason to suppose that South Carolina would have any trade advantages over other more populated and more prosperous Southern states.
PeaRidge: "New York shipping interests, using the Navigation Laws and in collaboration with the US Congress, effectively closed the market off from competitive shipping, and in spite of the inefficiencies, were able to control the movement of Southern goods."
Total rubbish, since only foreign owned ships were highly taxed.
Any US owned ships -- Northern, Western or Southern -- were free to compete for business anywhere in the country.
This is clearly seen when you consider the role of New Orleans.
PeaRidge: "This combined with the power of the Mississippi caused a number of Governors to meet with Lincoln as he assumed power."
Doubtless Lincoln met with hundreds of important people in the months before and after taking his Oath of Office on March 4, 1861.
BJK:
"No law stopped Southerners from building, owning & operating their own ships, as for certain they did in large Southern cities like New Orleans and Baltimore." I made much of New Orleans, but didn't mention Baltimore in any detail.
This source and this source show that as of 1840 Baltimore and New Orleans had the same population, 102,000 souls.
However, according to this source, by 1860 Baltimore outnumbered New Orleans by 25% -- Baltimore's 212,000 to New Orleans 169,000 population.
And for many decades Baltimore was a major competitor with New York for coastal packets delivering cotton for shipment to Liverpool.
But Baltimore was also highly diversified into tobacco, flour, grains, clothing, tanning, tin & sheet iron ware products, foundry & machine shop products and railroad cars.
Baltimore was the first Eastern city to extend railroads to the Ohio River -- B&O Railroad.
Yes, Baltimore was not the King Cotton & Midwest produce shipping center like New Orleans, but by 1860 it was still the larger and more economically diversified city, third only behind New York and Philadelphia.
So Baltimore and New Orleans both demonstrated that Southerners were fully capable of competing both nationally and globally, in processing, manufacturing and shipping.
But in 1860, those cities served a white population of around 8 million, while New York, Philadelphia and Boston served nearly three times more, and so were, not surprisingly, correspondingly larger.
Antebellum New Orleans:
Antebellum Baltimore:
USS Constellation built in Baltimore, 1797:
