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So, the South had all the money, control of the Supreme Court, an inflated representation in Congress thanks to the 3/5 clause, and prior to their suicidal behavior in 1860, control of the Presidency.

They may have had an inflated representation in Congress, but an actual majority they did not have. What they had was the money, and the majority of Congress was willing to spend it for them.

It is ever the case that the majority of a "Democracy" always votes to take the money away from those people who have it.

How was it again that they were getting screwed so badly by the apparently destitute New Yorkers?

The New Yorkers weren't destitute because among other things, they were siphoning off about 40% of all the Southern trade money. The New Yorkers would have become destitute had the South been able to become independent, because the Southerners would have set up competing industries with their newly acquired 40% more money.

And how exactly did Lincoln have enough money to fund an Army once the South left and he only had the economically helpless Northerners to deal with?

Borrowing. Gold from California, Silver from Nevada. Forcing all European trade to go to the North. Inflation. Conscription. Payments by the wealthy to stay out of the Army. Lots of things contributed to his funding his army.

The South believed - wrongly in my view - that slavery (which was the entire basis of their economy) was at risk.

You aren't reading the right stuff. Read this declaration of causes. It's says a lot about the Benjamins and economic oppression by the North.

And they believed the only way to protect it was to expand it. Hence Kansas.

They believed that slave states would form an alliance in Congress, and therefore a Majority in Congress would preclude any laws that threatened them. Seeing what the Northern majority had already done to them, this is not an irrational move on their part.

Have you read the Confederate constitution? That is an expansionist document. The Confederacy was going to expand its territory and it was going to guarantee slavery in those acquired territories - whether it was New Mexico, Cuba, or Pennsylvania.

Yes, i've read the Confederate Constitution. It is virtually the US Constitution, most of it comprised of the exact same verbiage. They added some stuff to it in various places, but it's blueprint is the US Constitution.

And yes, the Confederacy would have been expansive, and given enough time, it would have likely become the greater of the two nations. It would have appealed to territories to join it instead of the US, and it would have supplied these territories with goods and services as good as what they could get from the New York coalition.

That any businessman can see that the Confederacy would have eventually expanded (because of lower taxes and increasing economic activity) is exactly why it posed a mortal economic threat to the Northern coalition of business interests.

None of you are trying to look at what would have been the future had the Confederate states achieved independence. You aren't looking at this thing from the eyes of New York Robber Barons who could clearly see what a threat to their economic interests that the South would shortly pose.

An independent South would be a virtual "hand of death" for their wealth and power, and they could see it. From their perspective it was absolutely essential that Free Trade be stopped in the South.

There had to be a war.

DiogenesLamp: "They may have had an inflated representation in Congress, but an actual majority they did not have."

In fact, from 1801 until 1861 Southern Democrats controlled one or both houses of Congress in all but two years: 1841-1842.
Even as late as early 1861 Democrats still had a Senate majority, until Southern Democrats walked away.

In the 60 years from 1801 until 1861 Southern Democrats controlled:

Both houses of Congress and the Presidency in 42 of 60 years.
Both houses with opposition President in 8 of 60 years.
The Presidency in 52 of 60 years.

That's why DiogenesLamp's harping on Northern oppression of Southerners is pure nonsense.
In fact, Southern & Northern Democrats were close allies, business associates & friends, each scratched the others' backs and none did anything to the true detriment of the other.
Of course all that changed in the spring of 1861, but before that time none had reason to complain.
Indeed, New York Democrats' first response to secession was to join them!
Only after that proved impossible, and Southerners began revoking their debts, did Northern Democrats reluctantly join Republican opposition to secession.

DiogenesLamp: "The New Yorkers weren't destitute because among other things, they were siphoning off about 40% of all the Southern trade money."

This number while often cited by pro-Confederates is hugely misleading.
In fact first, it applies to only that portion of Southern products which shipped from New York, roughly one-third of the total.
The rest shipped from New Orleans (about half) and other Gulf & Atlantic ports.
Second, it includes not only shipping, insurance, warehousing & banking costs, but also imports purchased by Southerners from New York merchants, and no doubt occasional "nights on the town" in the Big City!

Third, if any Southern city were going to achieve the exalted economic heights DiogenesLamp fantasizes, it would be New Orleans or even Baltimore (since they had important economic advantages) long before Charleston, SC, and yet there's no evidence of it before 1860.

DiogenesLamp on sources for funding Union Army: "Borrowing.
Gold from California, Silver from Nevada.
Forcing all European trade to go to the North.
Inflation. Conscription.
Payments by the wealthy to stay out of the Army.
Lots of things contributed to his funding his army."

Not surprisingly, DiogenesLamp fails to mention the more important Union funding sources: increased tariff rate revenues and replacing previous imports with Northern US manufactured products, then using war-time income tax to fund the Civil War.

DiogenesLamp: " Read this declaration of causes. It's says a lot about the Benjamins and economic oppression by the North."

In fact, that was not South Carolina's official "Declaration of Causes..." document, this link is
DiogenesLamp's link is to Robert Barnwell Rhett's "Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States".
And as with any pro-Confederate propaganda, its key points are lies & nonsense, specifically:

"The one great evil from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States."
In fact the only thing happening in November 1860 was the Fire Eater engineered Republican election victory, nothing else.
"The Southern States now stand exactly in the same position toward the Northern States that our ancestors in the colonies did toward Great Britain.
The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British Parliament."
In fact, in November 1860 there was no remote similarity, and Republicans claimed no authority over slavery in the South but did want to exercise the same authority as the Founders exercised over slavery in the territories.
"The British Government, however, offered them [the Founders] a representation in the British Parliament; but it was not sufficient to enable them to protect themselves from the majority, and they refused it. "
In fact, no such offer was ever made or rejected.
"For the last forty years the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North.
The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue -- to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures."
In fact, since Day One of the Republic Southern representatives in their Democrat Party majorities had agreed to & approved various levels of taxation, consistent with political & economic conditions of their times.
Further, any US tariffs protected manufacturing in all regions -- East, West, South or North -- not just "the North".
"Yet this British policy has been fully realized toward the Southern States by the Northern States.
The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected three-fourths of them are expended at the North."
In fact, according to this source about 50% of Federal spending went to the South, which disproportionally favored the South since only about 25% of US voters lived there.
We should also note here that even hyper-partisan Rhett does not claim that Southerners paid 3/4 of Federal revenues.
"This cause, with others connected with the operation of the General Government, has provincialized the cities of the South.
Their growth is paralyzed, while they are the mere suburbs of Northern cities.
The bases of the foreign commerce of the United States are the agricultural productions of the South; yet Southern cities do not carry it on.
Our foreign trade is almost annihilated."
And yet, with Southern Democrats in control of both houses of Congress in 46 of the past 60 years, with Democrat Presidents in 52 of the past 60 years and both houses plus the President in 42, only "now" in 1860 does this suddenly become a crisis requiring only secession as a remedy?
Total lies, rubbish & nonsense.
"Yet, by gradual and steady encroachments on the part of the North, and submission on the part of the South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away, and the Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of limitless powers in its operations."
But in fact, nothing like that happened except with the willing leadership, approval & cooperation of Southern Democrat leaders.
"If it is right to preclude or abolish Slavery in a territory, why should it be allowed to remain in the States?
The one is not at all more unconstitutional than the other, according to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States."
Because our Founders considered abolition in US territories a legitimate power of Congress while similar authority over states was reserved for constitutional amendments.

DiogenesLamp: "None of you are trying to look at what would have been the future had the Confederate states achieved independence.
You aren't looking at this thing from the eyes of New York Robber Barons who could clearly see what a threat to their economic interests that the South would shortly pose."

Nonsense, all that is perfectly obvious, as was the Confederacy's foundation in protecting its interests in their institution of slavery.
But all those "New York financial interests" you so complain about were Northern Democrat allies to Southern Slave Power Democrats.
Those Northerners remained loyal to secessionists as long as they possibly could -- until, basically, Confederates began revoking their debt payments.
Then Northern Democrats reluctantly and temporarily switched sides, providing Union Republicans with some of their margin of military & political victory.