Why "the South" did not get a railroad to the Pacific

The only thing that was special about southern cotton was that it was cheap. The growing season was very long and the cotton could be repicked several times. Cotton had been grown in Ohio and Illinois. It was even grown in Kansas. But the super productivity of southern lands, and the efficiency of the south in ginning, packing and shipping the cotton, put northern growers out of the business.
 
None of the southern routes became popular, because there were almost no railroads in TX, LA and AR. In contrast the Illinois railroads had already crossed the Mississippi, and both Iowa and Missouri had a good start on a railroad system. In CA, only SF and Sacramento had the beginnings of railroads. And those cities preferred some version of the central route.
 
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Cotton grown for export was a special interest constituting about 3.6% of the US GDP. Profits were heavily concentrated in LA, MI, AR and east Texas, where the growing season was long, and soils were fertile.

You're being exact, so thank you. Either way, cotton was not a major contributor to the US tax revenue.
 
"On the eve of the Civil War, raw cotton constituted 61 percent of the value of all U.S. products shipped abroad." Probably true. But that was 61% of 6%, so about 3.6% of the entire economy. And a slightly higher % of GDP.

Yes, and our little friends on here have been duped into believing cotton was a heavy hitter to the degree this country was built on it. That is one of the grossest lies in history.
 
The only thing that was special about southern cotton was that it was cheap. The growing season was very long and the cotton could be repicked several times. Cotton had been grown in Ohio and Illinois. It was even grown in Kansas. But the super productivity of southern lands, and the efficiency of the south in ginning, packing and shipping the cotton, put northern growers out of the business.

Yes, and slavery kept cotton prices low, that's what is really special.
 
Most US revenue came from tariffs on exports, the biggest export in 1860 was Southern raised cotton.
article I, section 9, clause 5 of the US constitution.
"No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State."
By the late 1850s, more than 50% of the tariff was collected in New York City alone with just over 90% collected in Northern ports. Outside of New Orleans, all other Southern ports collected less than 5% of the revenue.
on imports. the tax was collected at the port of entry but was paid by the owners of the imports, who in turn most likely passed it on to the consumer.
the question is who were the consumers ?
it is argued that the south's lack of industry and reliance on imports means that they had and higher proportion of the tax burden. i can not find evidence of that even including luxury items. there was no shortage of craftsmen in the south, only short of factories , and most everyday and luxury items were made locally or at home. there were more farms in the north than the south in 1860 and more still in the trans-mississippi. they relied on imports or domestic production as much as the south. the north had a much larger middle class and higher standard of living , in general, and people had more money to buy imported items. northern industry imported most of its iron and steel prior to the war but steadily increased iron production prior to the war as an industry not a war effort. one of their [south's] biggest shortages were in steel and iron production and although they had the resources they failed to fully exploit them until necessitated by secession and war.
however the west and new england were exporters or shippers and also relied on imports.
new construction in railroads from port cities went west not south and lends me to believe the consumer market was to the ohio valley, upper mississippi and great lakes, and the old northwest.

this is old news and your assertion that US exports were taxed is patently untrue. also i have my doubts that the south was the largest section of import consumers. it is just another southern complaint about them darn yankees even if they [southerners] wrote the tariff laws themselves including the "tariff of abominations 1828".
 

There is nothing in that article that is pertinent to our discussion. Why don't you synthesize in a post the pertinent points to our discussion in that article.

Here's what I read:

1). The U.S. government never collected a dollar from cotton exports.

2). Cotton exports were only 5-6% of the entire U.S. GDP.
 
There is nothing in that article that is pertinent to our discussion. Why don't you synthesize in a post the pertinent points to our discussion in that article.

Here's what I read:

1). The U.S. government never collected a dollar from cotton exports.

2). Cotton exports were only 5-6% of the entire U.S. GDP.
"By the time shots were fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, cotton was the core ingredient of the world’s most important manufacturing industry. The manufacture of cotton yarn and cloth had grown into “the greatest industry that ever had or could by possibility have ever existed in any age or country,” according to the self-congratulatory but essentially accurate account of British cotton merchant John Benjamin Smith. By multiple measures—the sheer numbers employed, the value of output, profitability—the cotton empire had no parallel."
the most successful agricultural industry in the States of America which has been ever contemplated or realized.” Cotton exports alone put the United States on the world economic map. On the eve of the Civil War, raw cotton constituted 61 percent of the value of all U.S. the eve of the Civil War, raw cotton constituted 61 percent of the value of all U.S. products shipped abroad. Before the beginnings of the cotton boom in the 1780s, North America had been a promising but marginal player in the global economy."
"Now, in 1861, the flagship of global capitalism, Great Britain, found itself dangerously dependent on the white gold shipped out of New York, New Orleans, Charleston, and other American ports. By the late 1850s, cotton grown in the United States accounted for 77 percent of the 800 million pounds of cotton consumed in Britain. It also accounted for 90 percent of the 192 million pounds used in France, 60 percent of the 115 million pounds spun in the Zollverein, and 92 percent of the 102 million pounds manufactured in Russia."



 
T

I asked you to synthesize your main points in your own words and you copied and pasted those same excerpts in those articles. Nevertheless, I'll play. Your points have already been discussed and already refuted as false.

I'll reiterate the main points that are relevant:

1). Cotton in the height of its boom 1830-1860 only made up of 5-6% of the U.S. GDP. It was a narrow slice of microeconomics on vast macroeconomic pie chart. Cotton was hardly indispensable.

2). There were no taxes on cotton exports. Taxes were levied on imports. According to you, the U.S. government relied on taxes of cotton exports for revenue. A complete fallacy.

3). Your last paragraph is totally irrelevant: just because it sold the most cotton to foreign countries doesn't mean it increased the U.S. GDP. Every bit it of cotton the south sold still only equated to 5-6% of the GDP.
 
Oddly, the new empire had been born in Derbyshire in 1857. And its cousin, the bituminous coal industry, past its reading test in 1859, as proctored by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
 
The first steel rail in the world was made in England in the mid-1850s, and a trial installation on a railroad was made in 1862. After two years, officials found that it had outlasted the eighteenth replacement of adjoining iron rails.

1-2-5F9-25-ExplorePAHistory-a0b9x8-a_349.jpg

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William Rau photograph of the Cambria Iron Works and Johnstown, 1891.



In 1864, the PRR placed an order for an experimental lot of 150 tons of steel rails - the first in America - and hinted that it might build its own steelworks. In 1866, the company announced that it was accelerating its purchases of steel rail despite a price that was double that of iron rails. In time, the PRR helped organize and fund the Pennsylvania Steel Co. At Steelton, Pennsylvania, just south of Harrisburg, that firm built the first plant to be constructed specifically for the production of railroad rails.
https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-1CA From Derby to Harrisburg was not as long as it seemed. But steel production eventually reached figures as high as 80 million tons a year, in the US alone.
 
Every bit it of cotton the south sold still only equated to 5-6% of the GDP.
this is definitely not one of my strong points so feel free to correct me as necessary.
however the way i understand it is ...

in 1860
the northern per capita GDP was only a couple percentage points behind the south. however there were almost 3 times as many whites in the north than the south and so the northern total production far outweighed that of the south.
cotton represented about 80% of US exports but if that represented the GDP then the north built it's war machine with less than the remaining 20 %.
the GDP represents the value of ALL goods and services, whether exported or not.
the south exported almost all of it's GDP. the north had a much larger domestic market, including southern states, and did not export to the extent that the south did.
the south preferred to export to britain rather than fuel northern industry which they saw as a threat to their political power. if they had sold the bulk of their cotton to northern industry that 80% figure would be much lower.
the northern GDP remained largely at home and so to equate exports alone with the GDP in invalid.
the bottom line is that the north out produced the south by about 10 to 1 and the per capita GDP of the north continued to rise after the war while the south declined.
does this make sense ?
 
this is definitely not one of my strong points so feel free to correct me as necessary.
however the way i understand it is ...

in 1860
the northern per capita GDP was only a couple percentage points behind the south. however there were almost 3 times as many whites in the north than the south and so the northern total production far outweighed that of the south.
cotton represented about 80% of US exports but if that represented the GDP then the north built it's war machine with less than the remaining 20 %.
the GDP represents the value of ALL goods and services, whether exported or not.
the south exported almost all of it's GDP. the north had a much larger domestic market, including southern states, and did not export to the extent that the south did.
the south preferred to export to britain rather than fuel northern industry which they saw as a threat to their political power. if they had sold the bulk of their cotton to northern industry that 80% figure would be much lower.
the northern GDP remained largely at home and so to equate exports alone with the GDP in invalid.
the bottom line is that the north out produced the south by about 10 to 1 and the per capita GDP of the north continued to rise after the war while the south declined.
does this make sense ?

No, cotton represented 80% of U.S. exports, but the 80% of those cotton exports equated to 5-6% of the entire U.S. GDP. The south held about 5-6% of the GDP from cotton and maybe 1-2% more from sugar and rice, whereas the north's economy comprised of the rest of the GDP, like 90%. Therefore, the north's GDP was about 90% greater than the south's 8-10% that combined made up the entire U.S. GDP. Total GDP = 100% + 90% from the north + 10% from the south = 100% GDP, so the northern GDP was way ahead of the southern GDP, not behind it. Consequently, the north built its war machine with 90% of the GDP, which only 20% of the GDP would have never done the trick.

You are confusing export percentages with GDP percentages, the 80% export percentages is what made up the south's 6% GDP. 80% cotton export = 5-6% GDP. The U.S. had pretty much a closed economy, which exports accounted for a small percentage of the GDP, and that's why the threat of tariffs on imports always loomed.

Cotton went through boom and bust cycles, so for about 30-40 years prior to the Civil War it went through a boom phase, were it expanded its cotton production and simultaneously expanded slavery. But the increase of cotton production did not increase its GDP because exports were not that significant compared to the Industrial Revolution in the north. The plantation owner made more money but the south's overall contribution to the U.S. GDP was always basically small, perhaps it fluctuated a few point to 6% during the boom decades. Check out the graph below.

Subsequently, the war expanded the north's economy probably 100 fold, whereas it bankrupted the south's economy. Yes, the north's economy increased every decade after the Civil War, conversely the south's economy remained depressed until Roosevelt gave them an astronomical amount of New Deal subsdies.

For the purpose of this thread, all anyone needs to know is that cotton was not remotely indispensable to the U.S. GDP or tax revenue and pretty much expendable. The north could have easily built a nation without cotton exports, and it did prior, during and following the Civil War.

cotton gdp.png
 
See page 19. By 1859 railroads were able to use bituminous coal for passenger trains. http://ppolinks.com/hoboken32340/2014.013.0131_Motive_Power_Dev_Penn_RR_System_1924.pdf
That probably greatly reduced the fuel management problems for railroads.
The future was going to be based on steel and coal, until the advent of long distance flight.

We know cotton comprised of 6% of the U.S. GDP during its boom cycle. How much more of the GDP did sugar and rice contribute? I say it is very minuscule, but I'll research it. I say maybe 1-2% of the GDP.
 
As for the OP, I don't believe the south had enough money to build a railroad, perhaps the only would have been through government subsidies.
 
T


I asked you to synthesize your main points in your own words and you copied and pasted those same excerpts in those articles. Nevertheless, I'll play. Your points have already been discussed and already refuted as false.

I'll reiterate the main points that are relevant:

1). Cotton in the height of its boom 1830-1860 only made up of 5-6% of the U.S. GDP. It was a narrow slice of microeconomics on vast macroeconomic pie chart. Cotton was hardly indispensable.

2). There were no taxes on cotton exports. Taxes were levied on imports. According to you, the U.S. government relied on taxes of cotton exports for revenue. A complete fallacy.

3). Your last paragraph is totally irrelevant: just because it sold the most cotton to foreign countries doesn't mean it increased the U.S. GDP. Every bit it of cotton the south sold still only equated to 5-6% of the GDP.

Please see my correction at post#36.
 
No, cotton represented 80% of U.S. exports, but the 80% of those cotton exports equated to 5-6% of the entire U.S. GDP.
i think we are in agreement and i was only trying to simplify your previous post for other readers and myself.
i did not do the math but i said the north out produced the south by about 10 to 1 which would be 90% of the GDP and that the south exported almost all of it's share of the GDP.
my point with building the union war machine on less than 20% was to illustrate how ridiculous that is.
the pro south posters on this imply that the 80% figure means the south produced most of the GDP. wrong.
i also agree that the south did not have the capital to build a railroad and re-invested their limited capital in more slaves and land. when they did build new track it went from the cotton source to a port but generally did not connect with other lines, even when in the same town as another line thus maintaining a shipping monopoly for the cotton they sought. they did not develop trade markets but only access to raw cotton.
and i'll reiterate , the per capita GDP in the north and south was almost even but the north had 12 or 13 million more whites than the south. that is a huge difference in GDP sectional totals. am i correct ?
 
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