" 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. "

― Richard White , The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896