Federal subsidies created the Western railroad system and improved river navigation and harbors in the Northeast and Pacific Coast, but they did little for the South except improve navigation at the mouth of the Mississippi. Southern rivers, ports, and harbors received a fraction of the funds devoted to the Eastern and Pacific states, and even the critical levees along the Mississippi River languished. For the rest of the century Southerners contended that the banking system, the tariff, and federal subsidies for internal improvements discriminated against the South, and they clearly did.21
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