And why would they want that? This sounds like the old saying about Russians who didn't want a cow for themselves, they just wanted their neighbor's cow to die.
There was a relatively efficient economic system going at the time -- whatever one's moral judgment of it. Tear it apart and you don't necessarily get anything better.
I think "better" would depend on whether you were on the receiving end of economic gain or not. Jobs would have moved south, and so would have some of the shipping industry. This would have stimulated further economic growth along all sorts of diverse industries.
Thinking you can cut out the "middleman" and automatically grow rich is a mistake.
If it were less profitable to do it some other way, what need for protectionist laws and tariffs? Do not their very existence serve as proof that costs would have been cut without them?
Look at how many countries threw off the rule of foreign imperialists and actually ended up worse economically, and you'll see that your argument here is wrong.
I only know this being true of backward third world countries. I don't know of any western style countries that did worse on their own.
Also, here is more proof of the "Deep State", that i've been talking about. Others are starting to see it too. It's going mainstream.
Your idea was that it's all about money (and if it's not it's about power and ego).
That's when it comes to Abraham Lincoln and people from New York City.
But for you, the Confederates are choirboys, saintly types who never do anything out of self-interest.
Grow up and educate yourself.
If it were less profitable to do it some other way, what need for protectionist laws and tariffs? Do not their very existence serve as proof that costs would have been cut without them?
Tariffs were low after 1846. Southern states didn't have a legitimate grievance over existing tariff rates. And secessionists in Congress didn't care about the new Morrill rates, because they pulled out of Congress, rather than fight the rate hikes.
Two things you leave out of the picture:
1) The CSA was going to tax exports. This would make their cotton more expensive and encourage foreign processors to seek other sources.
It would also mean more of them money from cotton exports would end up in the pockets of the government, rather than those plantation owners you care so much about. Net result: less money for private investment in productive industry.
Government could well have played a larger role in the new CSA's economy than it did in the US economy. That was the case under Jefferson Davis's "war socialism" but it could conceivably have been the case even without war.
2) Confederate tariffs would apply to all imports from the United States. In practice, this would mean that Southerners in the CSA would pay more in tariffs, not less.
I know you want to think that American goods were junk in comparison to what came from Europe, but consumers, North and South, didn't think that way.
CSA products would have to pay US tariffs if sold in US markets. European goods imported through the CSA would have to pay two tariffs if sold in the US. The US was internally a free trade zone that encouraged industry. Cut it into two or more pieces and industries would have smaller home markets and fewer opportunities to show a profit.
I only know this being true of backward third world countries. I don't know of any western style countries that did worse on their own.
Educate yourself, or if you can't find some one who will.
Why did some societies become "backward third world countries"?
Why did Argentina, a country settled largely by Europeans and one of the richest countries in the world at one point, become "backward" and "third world"? By thinking they'd become fabulously wealthy if they cut out the middlemen.
Why did Russia, again a rapidly developing economy before the revolution eventually become an basket case? Why did non-White China and Japan become such great economic successes? Where were countries like Italy and Spain economically just a few generations back and where would they be without the EU?
Use your head -- if you can. It wasn't written in stone that some countries would be rich and others poor. Good and bad policy choices and opportunities made a difference. You can't pronounce it as dogma that the Confederacy would be an economic success, especially since cotton prices would eventually come down.
But of course, nothing anybody says will ever convince you ...