Posted on 11/19/2018 8:39:26 AM PST by EveningStar
Each section was pursuing its own economic goals......one being mercantilistic....the other agricultural.
That is what the Constitution was designed to enable.
Agree.
It is now common that some here boast of Northern industrial capability at the onset of the 1850s, as if it is the mark of cultural superiority. This is more self-serving than accurate
I believe that the truth was that Northern mercantilism as practiced had led to the major recession in 1857 that crippled Northern banking, insurance, and manufacturing. If you examine the amount of specie being imported (Brojo’s favorite subject) and the Report of the Treasury included in Buchanan's State of the Union report of 1860, it is clear that Secretary Chase and Dix's warnings that that the government had turned to borrowing to survive was correct.
Meanwhile in the South, so allegedly far behind the robust North, the section was not in recession. In fact, Southern agriculture, banking, and manufacturing were thriving.
In 1859, tariff revenue financed 80% of federal spending. With secession, and lost income, in April of 1861, the treasury was broke, and facing reluctant US and overseas bankers.
President Lincoln decided to force conflicts at Ft. Barrancas, and Ft. Sumter to take back tariff revenue.
That is a horrible blow, and my heart goes out to you I cannot imagine how painful that must be. May you find peace until in the fullness of time you see her again.
In the meantime we your Freeper friends are here if you need or want conversation.
Nice try. Federal money was provided to dredge Charleston Harbor by the Rivers and Harbors Act.
The military had been charting and surveying the harbor even before that. The work was stopped by the outbreak of the Civil War.
The government was also building ships at Norfolk since the eighteenth century.
Good post. People today forget how chaotic, frenzied and terrified the country was in 1861. It must have seemed like the end of the country to people living back then.
According to the 1860 Census there were 22,000 miles of railroad track in the Northern states, and 9,000 miles of track in the Southern States that would comprise the Confederacy.
In 1853, the Southern states had 26% of the total railroad mileage in the country for 23% of the US population.
By 1859 according to the Boston Railway Times, there were 27,000 miles of railroads in the United States and that the Southern states percentage had grown to one third of the total of miles built. In addition to this fact, the railroads in the South had been constructed with private monies instead of Federal subsidies, were paid for, and had been cheaper to construct.
Why this is significant I will leave to you.
Pages 181-197 will inform you. A $50,000 earmark was in the act of 1852 you mentioned. The city wanted to retain control of the project, and did not begin work until the city of Charleston pledged its own $45,000 in funds in 1853.
Thus, all of the dredging equipment and later one ship were purchased or built with funds provided by the city of Charleston as well as money lent by the State of South Carolina.
On going expenses were underwritten by contracts with the city.
I agree with your premise that by 1860 the South was quite prosperous, the Deep South especially, arguably more so per capita than their Northern cousins.
Yes, much is made of the South's alleged backwardness industrially, but that is only when compared to the highly industrialized North.
By global standards the South was more advanced than any but a handful of other regions.
Nevertheless, Senator Wigfall's words are certainly appropriate in describing the South's elite planter class outlook.
They considered cotton & sugar sure ways to wealth, contrasted to industry and shipping as relatively risky.
And Confederate aristocracy came entirely from the planter class, no industrialists need apply.
One result was British traditional aristocrats sympathized with Confederates while industrial middle classes supported the Union.
Fortunately, when the chips were down, so did their elected officials.
As for claims that Federal government didn't support Southern railroads, there is the matter of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis' Gadson Purchase from Mexico for the sole purpose of providing a Southern route for the transcontinental railroad.
At the same time, iirc, Secretary Davis moved to block a Northern route.
Politics as usual...
Interesting.
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