There were more millionaires in Mississippi than New York prior to 1865.
....and also more slaves than there were free folks in that state.
Virtually every Southern politician for thirty years before the War of Secession was of the Plantation Aristocracy, making decisions for and about cotton.
The cotton gin and the steam engine doomed the South, the first for making slave-grown cotton a viable prospect and the second for powering the English textile mills that introduced machine-made cotton into what had been a world wearing homespun. Cheap, comfortable, durable and already pattered and decorated, a truely miracle product.
The South thought their virtual monopoly on raw cotton production would last forever, so much so they actually tried to pressure the British Empire into recognition of the Confederacy by withholding their own cotton exports.
England responded by growing their own cotton in India and Egypt, something which would prob’ly have happened eventually anyway.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
