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I'll provide some links to other sources of Lincoln's words about the revenue. Some of these sources have different wording, as you noted above.

1. Link 1.

2. Link 2.

3. The Baltimore Daily Exchange article of April 3, 1861 sounds like a different reporter wrote his own version of what he was told by an attendee of the meeting with Lincoln, possibly a different attendee than the source in the Sun article. See: Link 3

4. But here is what might convince you about the Baltimore Sun article, a reprinted copy of the Sun article in another newspaper minus the last two paragraphs. This reprint was published in the Bedford Inquirer, (Bedford Pennsylvania), May 3, 1861. (I've already provided one of those last two paragraphs and would be happy to provide the other.) For the Bedford Inquirer article, see: Link 4

I've also provided a link above to the many pages of John Baldwin's 1866 congressional testimony that mentions a similar Lincoln comment about the revenue made in an April 4, 1861 meeting with Lincoln.

x, you said, If Lincoln said it, was it really a jaw-dropping moment that revealed his inner-most motivations, or was it one of many things said in the conversation?. How is your jaw? Certainly it wasn't the only thing Lincoln said in the meeting or the only topic discussed, but IMO it does indicate one of the main drivers for his actions.

rockrr, are you still a skeptic? The Belton Inquirer reprint of the Sun article matches my copy of the Sun article, minus the last two paragraphs as I mentioned above.

Here is another reprint of the April 23, 1861 article iof the Baltimore Sun. This one includes one of the paragraphs missing from the Belton Inquirer article.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045706/1861-05-01/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1861&index=2&rows=20&words=become+revenue&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1862&proxtext=become+of+the+revenue&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

And another:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85025007/1861-04-24/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1861&index=4&rows=20&words=become+revenue&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1862&proxtext=become+of+the+revenue&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

And here is one that contains the complete Baltimore Sun article:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026547/1861-04-30/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1861&index=6&rows=20&words=become+revenue&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1862&proxtext=become+of+the+revenue&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

rockrr, are you still a skeptic?

Yes, even more so now than before.

It's never been my claim that you didn't see what you plainly saw, or that you didn't have copies of what you clearly have. My skepticism lies with the claim that Lincoln ever spoke those words. Those articles purport (assert or claim) that he did, by virtue of "interviews". They do not provide proof - only assertion - by people with an agenda.

Now, having had an opportunity to read and compare them, I am even more convinced that they allowed their agenda to drive their "recollections".

Thanks for the links - they were interesting reads.

Most of those are third- or fourth- or fifth-hand accounts. Once the story was established writers felt free to adapt what they remembered of it. James Battle Avirett certainly didn't witness Lincoln's comments first-hand, though by the time he wrote about it 40 years later he may have convinced himself that he had.

This part from one of the newspaper accounts is revealing:

The Rev. Dr. Fuller, of the Baptist church, accompanied the party, by invitation, as chairman, and the conversation was conducted mainly between him and Mr. Lincoln, and was not heard entire by all the members of the Convention.

And later:

Dr. Fuller expressed the opinion that the Northern States would constitute an imposing government and furnish revenue, but our informant could not follow the exact terms of the remark.

So in other words, "our informant" caught a few words here and there and pieced them together without much knowledge of the whole conversation.

Somehow over time, "And what is to become of the revenue?" got metamorphosed into "What about my tariff?" That was very convenient for Confederate and neo-Confederate propaganda.

James Buchanan left the the US in a very bad financial position in 1861. I don't know if Lincoln said what it's alleged he said, but federal revenue was clearly on everyone's mind in Washington.

It wouldn't have been hard for someone with obvious pro-secession sympathies to piece together fragments of a conversation to produce something that put Lincoln in a bad light.

Compare Lincoln's official response to the oft-reprinted newspaper story. It could well be that the "informant" mashed together Rev. Fuller's formal comments with Lincoln's informal remarks later, leaving out both Lincoln's more considered official response and much of the surrounding context, and adding a certain amount of imagination.