“Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent., which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the southern ports”
and not an ounce more would be bought from Tredegar, it would have to fold its operations. The South would have only retail and agriculture, no manufacturing.
I want to present you with a difficult to understand concept.
Economic changes that might be bad for Tredegar (and I reject that claim) may be more than offset by economic benefits to the larger industries of the South.
You are trying to convince us that these economic changes would be overall worse for the South, simply because you assert they are worse for Tredegar.
They might be worse for Tredegar, but bringing in more profits and capital to all the other cities of the South would have been greatly beneficial to their overall economic condition.
And these changes would have been very definitely worse for Northern Industries who more or less controlled the New York coalition which ran the Congress, and who I am beginning to believe held Lincoln's leash.