That is not true, as we have already discussed for years.
There is a reason they coined the term "Robber Barons" for the gilded era. That is how they behaved, and they had undue influence on government, same then as today.
The Gilded Age came after the Civil War. Before that, if you're talking about New York City, you're talking about Edith Wharton's little old New York. There were rich families there then but nothing like what there was later. Some wealthy planters, recognized that they had common interests with New York merchants and bankers, and that they weren't all that different. Some New Yorkers felt that way about their Southern clients. The two groups even intermarried. But when slavery became a big issue, grievance mongers took over and Southern elites became convinced that the Northerners were cheating them.
We have disagreed about this over the years.
How does one get hard data on this particular topic? Robert Rhett alleges this in his speech, but what source can say with certainty if this is true or not?
Certainly the Northern side will say it isn't true, and the Southern side will say it is. How do we determine who is correct?
The Gilded Age came after the Civil War. Before that, if you're talking about New York City, you're talking about Edith Wharton's little old New York. There were rich families there then but nothing like what there was later. Some wealthy planters, recognized that they had common interests with New York merchants and bankers, and that they weren't all that different. Some New Yorkers felt that way about their Southern clients. The two groups even intermarried. But when slavery became a big issue, grievance mongers took over and Southern elites became convinced that the Northerners were cheating them.
There is much truth in this, but I think it paints an incomplete picture. Today, the focus of liberal power is New York, but I think back then it was more diffused, though the "Gilded Era" was not that far in the future.
Boston was certainly a concentration of liberal power back then and still is today. Chicago I think has always been corrupt.
The networks are complex, but one gets the general sense that they are concentrated in the region of the Northeast, though in Modern times, the West coast has far more power than it used to have.