Great research! I doubt you’ll ever convince Diogenes, though. Too much in love with his own idea.
My purpose is not to convince these old racist fools (I hate to use that word but what choice do I have?) but rather to show others how silly their ideas are. Wading into the morass of minutia around export financing is so ridiculous. Southerns were profiting on the cotton trade as much or more than were Northerners. In fact the South was richer per capita than the North at the time, while the aggregate of Northern resources obviously were larger in the North.
The plain fact was that the South was fighting to preserve its way of life, which was centered on class stratification and slavery. Yes, States Rights were the justification, but they wished to use that philosophy to protect slavery. They certainly didn't support the rights of Northern States to deal with runaway slaves as they saw fit!
By the same token, every knows the North was fighting too preserve the Union. The issue of slavery needed to be addressed eventually, but as even Diogenes admits abolition wasn't going going too be doable through politics for decades. The stupid Confederates just hastened its demise!