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Northern interests could have bought up plantations, and other people in the South could have bought up land as well.

Slavery was the #1 reason for the South secession, but it wasn't the only reason. The #2 issue for the 1860 election was called the Morrill Tariff, and tariffs were a huge issue in the decades leading up to the Civil War. The South constantly complained that the tariffs were designed to protect Northern industrial interests while the Southern raw materials industries had to compete directly against the rest of the world. The money the tariffs collected was used to build things like an expansive rail system up in the North and the South comparatively got left out.

“The South constantly complained that the tariffs were designed to protect Northern industrial interests while the Southern raw materials industries had to compete directly against the rest of the world. The money the tariffs collected was used to build things like an expansive rail system up in the North and the South comparatively got left out.”

Just like Alberta’s relationship with Canada. We pay and pay and get forgotten when the feds spend our money.

The war was just a continuation of the federalist vs anti federalist conflict . The civil war marked the end of the federal system in the us. We are essentially a unitary system of government now

Slavery was the #1 reason for the South secession . . .

What is your evidence for this? I have never seen this in contemporary Southern writings. And when only one in eighteen Southern people owned slaves (per the US National Park Service at Harper's Ferry), I don't see the case that they would all march off to die for something they didn't have in the first place.

The real number one reason for the South secession was State's Rights, of which the right to hold slaves was only one. The right to make their own decisions on industrialization without the punitive tariffs and exclusionary rules imposed by the Northern states was at least as important, and it affected a lot more Southern citizens. But that is only one right as well. The topic that motivated men to go to war was the more general issue of State's Rights to keep from having all power be sucked into the Federal black hole.

Of course, it didn't work even aside from losing. By the time of Southern surrender, the South had largely lost 'federalism' as well. Power had concentrated into an overarching 'national' government just as it had in the North.