Oh, I've never denied that the US acted shamefully. And I'm on record, I think, as mentioning the greed that was involved by all sides.

In fact, my wife and her friend are accumulating quite a bit of evidence that shows clearly that the federal government turned a blind eye to public sales of Southern cotton in the North, including in New York City. And these were not exclusively sales of cotton seized from blockade runners or captured by Union troops, but literal trainloads shipped North for sale -- the profits from which went to line the pockets of planters.

This flies in the face of "conventional academic teaching" as it has been since about 1962, so I will mention that my wife holds both a graduate degree in library science (specializing in academic libraries) and a doctorate in law. Her friend Mary holds a graduate degree in library science, a doctorate in law, and is ABD in American History. They are both well qualified to dig out the facts and well aware that any challenge to "conventional wisdom" had better be well supported by facts.

There was and is plenty of greed to go around.