The South became aware of the lop-sided improvements in the 1850s, and the political fight for the where the continental railroad would run began. The Southern states believed they were being squeezed from the benifits of the Pacific-Atlantic trade via the proposed railroad by the North. The Republicans were fighting for a Northern route, subsidized by the Federal Government, the South had its ideas of a Southern route, which may have been the easier route to the Pacific, since it did not include going over the Sierra Nevada Mountians. Also the South was fighting for open markets to their ports. The trade in the South was different than the North, their requirements were different.
In the North, states like Masschusetts and Maine recieved federal subsidies (they called them bounties), giving New England more power with freer capital, by supporting the fishing fleets in New England. Also New England was given discounts on the use of native vessals for imports. It was calculated that from 1788 to 1848 the federal government handed out $53,000,000 to run the federal custom houses, out of which $43,000,000 went to the North. Also in the years 1844 to 1848 the federal government expended $102,000,000 of revenues to the states of which $65,000,000 went to Northern states. Another calculation states that 80% of the federal disbursements went to the North, and that 67% of the revenues from customs were derived from goods imported in exchange for Southern products. In 1852 the South produced 67% of the exports and collected only 11% of the total duties on imports, 80% of that total were expended in non-slaveholding states. By 1860 the overall majority of imports were coming through New York City, leaving that city the nations controlling distributor of foriegn products.
[SOUTHERN SIDELIGHTS A PICTURE OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE IN THE SOUTH A GENERATION BEFORE THE WAR BY EDWARD INGLE, A.B., 1896]