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

Calhoun , Gadsden, and De bow's ideas of diversity, industrialization, and railroads were in the minority and still further fractured by regional interests within the section. nature had provided cotton and labor and enough land that scientific practice of land use was impractical. nature's abundance is the reason that poor agricultural practices were used and expansion necessary.

Got a source for your Fallacy?
 
Looks like you agree with me. Charleston had a RR to Memphis.
Nope. My point was how little the politicians and people of South Carolina actually did about railroads. The Memphis & Charleston was a Tennessee and Alabama line.

Memphis was one of the TRR Mississippi Terminus.
Again, as I have pointed out, the Senators from South Carolina were opposed to the TRR plans and specifically supported ocean shipping instead.

Supporting a connection to Tennessee that will bring business in the direction of Charleston is one thing. Supporting connections to Tennessee that might take business West or North or South instead of East is a completely different matter to South Carolina

During the Secessionist Winter, the South Direct Traded with England. The declined Importation into NYC Harbor and the reduced Import Tariffs, had Lincoln wondering, Oh, How am I going to Pay the Bills, without the South. So, the Ports didn't seem to be an Issue in the short run. All of the profits from Direct Trading with Europe, would of paid for Port Improvements.

I mean this absolutely without offense: that is about as realistic as "the South's" belief that they could withhold King Cotton and the British and French would give them whatever they wanted.
 
Nope. My point was how little the politicians and people of South Carolina actually did about railroads. The Memphis & Charleston was a Tennessee and Alabama line.


Again, as I have pointed out, the Senators from South Carolina were opposed to the TRR plans and specifically supported ocean shipping instead.

Supporting a connection to Tennessee that will bring business in the direction of Charleston is one thing. Supporting connections to Tennessee that might take business West or North or South instead of East is a completely different matter to South Carolina



I mean this absolutely without offense: that is about as realistic as "the South's" belief that they could withhold King Cotton and the British and French would give them whatever they wanted.


Circular Fallacy. Need to get you a good Book. Several of them actually.
 
I have posted about 4 post concerning Memphis. It was Calhoun's plan to go to Memphis with a RR. These States coordinated with each other, to make it happen. Any Railroad would benefit anyone along the Route. Towns and Commerce exploded when the RR passed. Vicksburg and New Orleans also in the running for the Terminus. Jeff Davis had a Plantation south of Vicksburg. Recon where he wanted the TRR to go? Memphis was WEST in 1840 era when all of this began. Calhoun thought Memphis would be the most advantageous place to go. New Orleans, Vicksburg and Memphis were all Port Cities. And yes, the Civil War would delay construction of Southern Railroads. Surely that isn't argumentative.
aren't you the one who advised not to rely on google and hence wikipedia but to read a book ?
from the same article..
Chartered in 1846, the 311 miles (501 km) 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge railroad ran from Memphis, Tennessee to Stevenson, Alabama through the towns of Corinth, Mississippi and Huntsville, Alabama....

the states did not coordinate with each other and many did not use the same gauge and type of track. The M&C had to negotiate a deal with the N&C to use that rail line to reach Chattanooga . the SCC&RR took twenty years to build a bridge over the savannah river to Augusta and another 5 to connect to the Georgia RR.
the connection the M&C made in 1857 was to Savannah, that city connecting to atlanta in 1851. the bridge over the savannah river from hamburg to Augusta was not done until 1858 so no connection from the M&C to Charleston until after that date. This was a network with private and state funding and separate state laws and regulations, especially in Tennessee. each town had it's own interests and priorities and did not coordinate but negotiated as their interests demanded. many were in direct competition. Calhoun, Gadsden, and DeBow's national aspirations were not necessarily the railroad builders or financiers aspirations.
 
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Got a source for your Fallacy?
i do but i did not save the link and must relocate it. i can not remember my search terms or the authors name but i will post it when i do. it is verry interesting and quite long, over 200 pages, and i had only scratched the surface of it when i logged out to deal with my dogs raising heck with the lawn people. sorry but i will verify it asap.
 
The Southern states laid down over 8,300 miles of track in the 1850s, a huge increase over its 1840s network. In fact, 75 percent of the total railroad mileage that the Confederacy would have at the start of the Civil War was newly constructed in the 1850s. Only the northwestern states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Iowa could match this new mileage or boast a similarly rapid growth rate. The two regions, the South and the Northwest, shared equally in the claims of vast progress, constructing almost all of the 22,000 mile built in the United States during the decade. Their beautiful depots, brilliant locomotives, and buoyant enterprises were plain to see.

The southern states spent more that $128 million in state aid on railroad building before 1861. Government bonds and stock purchases paid for over 57 percent of the South's total railroad investment. In the North and West, however, public investment was on the wane and accounted for much less, approximately 20 percent of the total. In Virginia the state and local governments spent over $31 million on railroad development, nearly 70 percent of the state's total railroad construction capital.

With a total of more than $252 million invested in its rail network, the South constructed not only one of the most expensive rail networks in the world but also an advanced vision for its economic and social future. The feverish railroad building in the 1850s coincided with the rapid transfer of slaves into the southwestern region, and slave prices skyrocked with the expansion. Some of the fastest-growing regions of the South were also the fastest-growing railroad regions. Missouri spent more than any other state on rail construction in the 1850s , and in the same decade its total slave population rose 30 percent. Ever within older slave exporting states, such as Virginia, one-third of its counties experienced raped slave expansion. Slavery, it appeared, could follow the railroads and might potentially thrive in the western territories. pp26

In a decade the South had vaulted itself into a comparable position with much of the North in its access to railroads and all that they signified. The states of Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia, and South-Carolina, despite their difficult mountainous terrain, led the South in the percentage of fee residents living within fifteen miles (a day's journey on an oxcart) of a railroad depot. In these five states over 60 percent of residents lived in what we might call the railroad access zone. Although some northern states had higher percentages of resident living along the railroads, the South's overall per capita density of railroad structures, such a depots and junctions, for its free population was higher in many states than in the North. Mississippi and South Carolina, for example, had 3.1 and 4.8 depots, respectively, per 10,000 free residents, while Ohio had 1.7. By this measure, taking into consideration what was built on the ground, whites in the South could claim by 1861 an extraordinary level of railroad penetration, investment, and accessibility.

And although the South had relied for decades on its extensive river system for transportation and communication, railroads became the essential means to break the region's geographic barriers. The rail network created a "second nature" system, overlaid on existing rivers and natural features. The Vast and complex natural geography of the South only heightened the significance of the newly assembled web of iron rails, ties, and locomotives. Plank roads, turnpikes, macadamized roads, and even canals combined with railroads to create a deep transportation "system". Because steam-powered railroads in the 1850s required a depot every eight to twelve miles for watering and fueling, the technology created a high lever of access whether the populations it served were dispersed or concentrated. pp28 The Iron Way by William G. Thomas.

Yep, it would seem, the South was pretty serious about their Railroads. Also during this period, economically, diversification was happening. Shifting more away form Agriculture and into manufacturing and Trade.
 
Got a source for your Fallacy?
while looking for the thesis i ran across this one...
Now jest grant that what he says about plowin’ by steam should turn out true—and cotton could be grow’d in this way I gest want to ask him one question—When it comes to pickin out, whar is his steam engin then? It takes fingers to do this sort of work, and no steam engine will ever be made to strike a lick like them. If we ever du plow by steam, which I won’t deny nought be done, we’ll turn our ******s into pickers—make more cotton and sell at a less price. He is whot might be called a speculative genius, like a feller who lives not far from here; he thought he’d make an improvement in picking, and then monkeys would be the very article. One monkey could pick as much as a ******, and one ****** could oversee 10 monkeys. The monkeys was got and the trial maid; the only mistake about it was, instead of one ****** managing 10 monkeys, it took 10 ******s to manage one monkey; so he has to giv up his experimentin and sticks to the old way of gatherin his crop. Some one says that every man is crasy on some subjects. Your man is crasy on steam. The satire excerpted above ridicules southern defenses of the modern elements of their system of plantation slavery, portraying the slaveowners and slave societies of the South as inescapably and unknowingly backward. This parody of a southerner writing about reform was published in June and July of 1858, throughout the country. The parody looks to do much more than simply ridicule southern resistance to progress, however. Combining mockery of southern backwardness and resistance to change with ridicule of the comic nature of their abortive attempts to modernize their plantations, the parody seeks to show the ways in which attempts at improvement in the South, when executed, are doomed by their links to slavery. By contrast, the piece implies that true industrialization is a path to progress and moral improvement. Whatever the particular reasons that individual newspaper editors and their staffs had for printing the satire, its wide and varied audience shows the currency of debates over progress and improvement as they related to the plantation South and slavery.

The major goal of southern agricultural reform was to keep slavery and plantation agriculture profitable and competitive with other modes of production. This produced a movement focused on finding inefficiencies in agricultural production, rather than a movement determined to manage soil fertility sustainably.

https://jscholarship.library.jhu.ed...-DISSERTATION-2013.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
 
Yep, it would seem, the South was pretty serious about their Railroads. Also during this period, economically, diversification was happening. Shifting more away form Agriculture and into manufacturing and Trade.
most of it north and south or regional without through connections. the states or more precisely the cities were in competition. i have already shown that charleston was way behind savannah. the idea was to capture the trade of their own states and prevent it from going elsewhere. that was the whole reason for the SCC&RR in the first place, to capture SC trade going to Savannah.
the south refused to diversify and stuck with 'king cotton" even after the war until they were forced to by the boll weevil.
250px-Boll_weevil_monument.jpg

0px-Boll_Weevil_Monument_Alabama_Historical_Marker.jpg
 
while looking for the thesis i ran across this one...
Now jest grant that what he says about plowin’ by steam should turn out true—and cotton could be grow’d in this way I gest want to ask him one question—When it comes to pickin out, whar is his steam engin then? It takes fingers to do this sort of work, and no steam engine will ever be made to strike a lick like them. If we ever du plow by steam, which I won’t deny nought be done, we’ll turn our ******s into pickers—make more cotton and sell at a less price. He is whot might be called a speculative genius, like a feller who lives not far from here; he thought he’d make an improvement in picking, and then monkeys would be the very article. One monkey could pick as much as a ******, and one ****** could oversee 10 monkeys. The monkeys was got and the trial maid; the only mistake about it was, instead of one ****** managing 10 monkeys, it took 10 ******s to manage one monkey; so he has to giv up his experimentin and sticks to the old way of gatherin his crop. Some one says that every man is crasy on some subjects. Your man is crasy on steam. The satire excerpted above ridicules southern defenses of the modern elements of their system of plantation slavery, portraying the slaveowners and slave societies of the South as inescapably and unknowingly backward. This parody of a southerner writing about reform was published in June and July of 1858, throughout the country. The parody looks to do much more than simply ridicule southern resistance to progress, however. Combining mockery of southern backwardness and resistance to change with ridicule of the comic nature of their abortive attempts to modernize their plantations, the parody seeks to show the ways in which attempts at improvement in the South, when executed, are doomed by their links to slavery. By contrast, the piece implies that true industrialization is a path to progress and moral improvement. Whatever the particular reasons that individual newspaper editors and their staffs had for printing the satire, its wide and varied audience shows the currency of debates over progress and improvement as they related to the plantation South and slavery.

The major goal of southern agricultural reform was to keep slavery and plantation agriculture profitable and competitive with other modes of production. This produced a movement focused on finding inefficiencies in agricultural production, rather than a movement determined to manage soil fertility sustainably.

https://jscholarship.library.jhu.ed...-DISSERTATION-2013.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y[/QUOTE

If this is the only perspective you have of the South, I can understand your confusion. Might want to read my post a few times. New Perspectives can be Shocking.
 
most of it north and south or regional without through connections. the states or more precisely the cities were in competition. i have already shown that charleston was way behind savannah. the idea was to capture the trade of their own states and prevent it from going elsewhere. that was the whole reason for the SCC&RR in the first place, to capture SC trade going to Savannah.
the south refused to diversify and stuck with 'king cotton" even after the war until they were forced to by the boll weevil.
View attachment 315567
View attachment 315568

Charleston wanted to direct trade with Europe, and supply the West. The TRR would allow Trade from Europe to China. Some notion that a State didn’t want to trade with another state, region or Country defies Logic and basic concepts of Economics.

You do know, Cotton, Sugar and Rice was shipped to Europe? Tea, Coffee, and Manufactured Goods from Europe, Brazil and China were shipped to the South?

Cotton was not the main economic driver of every Southern State.

I can understand this is New Material for you.
 
aren't you the one who advised not to rely on google and hence wikipedia but to read a book ?
from the same article..
Chartered in 1846, the 311 miles (501 km) 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge railroad ran from Memphis, Tennessee to Stevenson, Alabama through the towns of Corinth, Mississippi and Huntsville, Alabama....

the states did not coordinate with each other and many did not use the same gauge and type of track. The M&C had to negotiate a deal with the N&C to use that rail line to reach Chattanooga . the SCC&RR took twenty years to build a bridge over the savannah river to Augusta and another 5 to connect to the Georgia RR.
the connection the M&C made in 1857 was to Savannah, that city connecting to atlanta in 1851. the bridge over the savannah river from hamburg to Augusta was not done until 1858 so no connection from the M&C to Charleston until after that date. This was a network with private and state funding and separate state laws and regulations, especially in Tennessee. each town had it's own interests and priorities and did not coordinate but negotiated as their interests demanded. many were in direct competition. Calhoun, Gadsden, and DeBow's national aspirations were not necessarily the railroad builders or financiers aspirations.

Thanks for posting.
 
You do know, Cotton, Sugar and Rice was shipped to Europe?
Cotton was not the main economic driver of every Southern State.
Cotton made up 80% of southern exports. As for rice and sugar, and don’t forget tobacco, who grew it ? Where was it grown ? Where was it shipped from ?
The excerpt is a contemporary parody of southern resistance to innovation and industrialization.
The TRR or lack of one did not prevent charleston trade with Europe but a lack of ships and a port in need of maintenance affected shipping out of it.
None of this changes the fact that savannah was ahead of charleston in railroading. Why ? Because the line went through some of the richest cotton country in the nation. Charleston , in trying to keep SC cotton going to charleston rather than savannah deliberately took twenty years to cross the river into Georgia. It must be a difficult concept since i keep having to repeat it. A new perspective might help digesting a new concept.
Thanks for posting but please post some new material. John
 
Cotton made up 80% of southern exports. As for rice and sugar, and don’t forget tobacco, who grew it ? Where was it grown ? Where was it shipped from ?
The excerpt is a contemporary parody of southern resistance to innovation and industrialization.
The TRR or lack of one did not prevent charleston trade with Europe but a lack of ships and a port in need of maintenance affected shipping out of it.
None of this changes the fact that savannah was ahead of charleston in railroading. Why ? Because the line went through some of the richest cotton country in the nation. Charleston , in trying to keep SC cotton going to charleston rather than savannah deliberately took twenty years to cross the river into Georgia. It must be a difficult concept since i keep having to repeat it. A new perspective might help digesting a new concept.
Thanks for posting but please post some new material. John


Thanks for your post. Respectfully.

Many, have a perspective that the South was only a Cotton Patch. That every White was Lazy and Backward. That the South wanted nothing More. Some, who have Studied History for 27 years, have this same perspective. People get it honestly, because it has been spoon fed to them. The Truth is, the South, just like the North, Wanted a TRR. Both knew that this, biggest Investment in a Internal Improvement in our countries History, would be a Game Changer. And it was. It was Economic and Political Independence. Neither Section wanted the other to have it. It is an Important Subject, and needs far more recognition as to its Importance. Thanks for discussing it with us.
 
The Truth is, the South, just like the North, Wanted a TRR.
I have never said the south didn’t want a TRR. However...
The slave states are largely responsible for neither section getting one before 1861.
South Carolina did not make the most effort to get one and may have , in fact, been the primary resistor to one.
The TRR was not the primary reason for the war.
The south was “lazy” or resistant to change and only accepted innovation when it benefitted their institutions or sectional region or state. They wanted to stick with slave produced cotton. They did not want to use capital for improvements or use federal aid. What little capital they had was best invested in more slaves and land.
Most southern railroad mileage was for getting cotton to port when there were not navigable rivers.
Southern cities competed with each other for this trade and did not cooperate or unify behind a cause, even in war.
The TRR did not prevent the south from trading directly with Europe or China and willingly accepted northern and European middlemen and industry thus sacrificing their economic independence .
Slavery was their economic engine and organized their culture and social order and was the driver of southern expansion.
The south was defensive and felt threatened in the face of judgement by the contemporary world.
 
I have never said the south didn’t want a TRR. However...
The slave states are largely responsible for neither section getting one before 1861.
South Carolina did not make the most effort to get one and may have , in fact, been the primary resistor to one.
The TRR was not the primary reason for the war.
The south was “lazy” or resistant to change and only accepted innovation when it benefitted their institutions or sectional region or state. They wanted to stick with slave produced cotton. They did not want to use capital for improvements or use federal aid. What little capital they had was best invested in more slaves and land.
Most southern railroad mileage was for getting cotton to port when there were not navigable rivers.
Southern cities competed with each other for this trade and did not cooperate or unify behind a cause, even in war.
The TRR did not prevent the south from trading directly with Europe or China and willingly accepted northern and European middlemen and industry thus sacrificing their economic independence .
Slavery was their economic engine and organized their culture and social order and was the driver of southern expansion.
The south was defensive and felt threatened in the face of judgement by the contemporary world.

Nevertheless, six of the ten wealthiest states in 1860 were Southern –2. Lousiana,3. South Carolina 5.Mississippi, 8. Georgia, 9.Texas, 10. Kentucky.

The South wasn't threatened by the world it was threatened by the incoming Lincoln regime and the regionally partisan Republican Party.
 
Nevertheless, six of the ten wealthiest states in 1860 were Southern –2. Lousiana,3. South Carolina 5.Mississippi, 8. Georgia, 9.Texas, 10. Kentucky.

The South wasn't threatened by the world it was threatened by the incoming Lincoln regime and the regionally partisan Republican Party.
Where was Lincoln in 1820 ?
Southern wealth was in slaves and cotton. They were capital poor.
 
Slaves were Capital in 1860.

In 1820, there was a Expansion and Cotton Boom:

After 1815, however, southern industries waned as the rapidly developing textile industry of Britain and New England demanded cotton, the invention of the cotton gin stimulated short-staple cotton cultivation, and fertile southwestern plantations yielded quick profits to investors. Southerners now began to invest more in new lands and in slave labor than in industry and internal improvements. This decision stemmed not only from the agrarian tradition and the prestige of owning real property, but also because the production of staples seemed to promise the easiest financial success. In the competition for capital, agriculture thus outbid industry. pp188 Industrial Slavery by Starobin

In the 1820's, changes in the economic situation again made conditions more favorable for the renewal of the campaign for slave-based industries. Over-expansion pf agriculture and diminishing demand for cotton had joined to create a serious depression. Cotton prices tumbled to twelve cents per pound in 1822 and to nine cents-an all-time low-in 1830. Almost simultaneously, trading patterns were shifting, as eastern merchants, cities, and states financed transportation projects to tap western raw materials and to serve western consumers Proportionally more western trade began flowing eastward than southward, even though the volume of the South's commerce with the Northwest increased. Southerners came to believe that eastern merchants were dominating national and international commerce to deprive them of their rightful share of profits. pp191-192 Industrial Slavery by Starobin

Also during this period of the Cotton Boom. New York Harbor will explode. Shipping of Cotton to Europe and European Trade will cause a great disparity between Charleston and NYC Harbors. One the South will never be able to reverse.
 
By the time of secession in 1861, the use of slave labor to industrialize the South had become accepted in theory and practice. This movement-to "bring the cotton mills to cotton fields," so to speak-did not begin suddenly in the 1840's or even in the 1880's, as come historians have suggested. Industries emerged at least as early as 1790's, and the campaigns for industry became most intense when Southerners felt least secure within the Union. The greatest interest in slave-based industries thus occurred from the late 1820's to the early 1830's, when southern agriculture was in difficulty, the tariff controversy raged, and when the South was coming under intense moral criticism. Interest also developed during the late 1840's and 1850's, when anti-slavery parties emerged and the sectional conflict was most bitter.

By the time of the Civil War, the struggle for southern self-sufficiency had reach a climax. Slaveowning agriculturists were now vigorously campaigning for slave-based industrialization and they were investing some of their surplus capital in southern industries. Such men, who included many influential Southerners, had overcome their traditional agrarianism and whatever backward-looking tendencies they may have had. They were seeking to create a balanced economy in which the South's great natural potential for agriculture would be complemented by its opportunities for extracting, processing, manufacturing, and transporting its resources and staples. Indeed, one reason why they wanted to expand slavery into the territories, and if possible re open the African slave trade, was to accelerate the development of southern industries. pp 230-231 Industrial Slavery by Starobin

This period between 1845 and 1861 is fascinating. Someone should write a book, about this period. I think I know someone who has. Gosh, what is that Guy's name!

The South was behind the North in 1861. However, it had the, as I remember 3rd largest economy in the World. from 1845 on they were playing catch up, most will recognize that. By by 1861, Many thought their fortunes were better served outside the Union. They wanted Economic and Financial Independence. Some had come to the conclusion that separating from the North was the only way they could develop their manufactures, banking and transportation infrastructure. They thought that the TRR, which would link the South to the West, also giving them a larger population to import European goods for Commerce. These Links would give them Political Connections to the West. Also would be the basis for expansion and broaden their economy into Mining, and other Industries. They began to think during this period that to finance Independence, Agriculture alone would not pay for it.
 
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