Not the case. Southern Ports were less developed than the harbors in Boston and New York. There was no law in place that discriminated against Southern Ports. But the infrastructure to move goods away from the port were much superior in the Northern States.
That is true, but this is not the reason why goods entered the nation through New York. The reason they entered through New York and Boston was because there was no economic benefit to ships going anywhere else.
The Tariff would be the exact same in Charleston and it was 800 miles further south. It would require another week to get to Charleston, all to pay the exact same import tariff. So why would anyone go there?
Make Charleston's tarrif 13% while New York's tariff is 37-50% and suddenly a trader can make an extra 37% profit on his products.
Do you think the Europeans would have ignored that?
There was no law in place that discriminated against Southern Ports.
Navigation act of 1817, making it illegal to use Foreign Ships or Crew to carry cargo between US Ports. Making it prohibitively expensive to use Foreign Ships or Crew to carry goods into or away from a single US Port.
It pretty much funneled all the shipping, banking and insurance industries into New York and Boston.
Also there were federal subsidies for the fishing industry (in the North) and the shipping industry (also in the north) paid for out of the tariff's collected on goods imported to balance the monetary debts owed to the South.
But the infrastructure to move goods away from the port were much superior in the Northern States.
Yes, but the primary reasons ships go anywhere is for profit. Charleston had dredged it's harbor and it was making it's port facilities better. European companies trading in Charleston would have done better than just the difference in the Tariff between the South and New York. The Southerners would have found that their purchasing power would go farther now that the North wasn't taking a cut out of it, and the Europeans would have found far more dollars chasing their goods.