Dependence in Northern capital was a degrading feature of the cotton economy, which operated on credit held by Northern banks.

The cotton states-South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana did not reach North’s 1837 level of $105 million in loans outstanding even by 1860. Southern wealth was tied up in slaves and land and hand little capital for other purpose. Southern knew they paid almost 90 percent of the country’s tariffs because of the South’s dependence on imported manufactured goods, which were taxed.