The average cotton farmer in the south was in debt to his "factor" for money to buy land and slaves. The factor in turn represented the farmer to the cotton brokers who in turn represented northern and european investment houses.
One of the underlying premises of the "tariffs were the reason the south seceded" folk (other than to ease their guilt about slavery) is that the Confederates were the true capitalists, not the protectionist North.
More likely, the large investment houses were located in the Northeast because they had the best ports for trans-Atlantic shipping.
One of the underlying premises of the "tariffs were the reason the south seceded" folk (other than to ease their guilt about slavery) is that the Confederates were the true capitalists, not the protectionist North.
I've never heard them say so. The modern day Confederate glorifiers seem to be hell bent on trying to paint Northern capitalists as ruthless and self-serving while trying to paint Southerners as radical free marketers who just happened to have a "peculiar institution" -- while ignoring the fact that their "peculiar institution" (a) involved stealing the labor of 4,000,000 negroes and (b) was the underpinning of their entire economy and society.