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DiogenesLamp: "The economic threat to the North was real.
Had Lincoln taken no action to deal with it, there would have been resulting economic devastation in the North East."

You sound like one of my old history professors, a self-avowed Marxist, who claimed all of history can be reduced to economics.
I didn't believe him then and don't believe you now, not sure how I passed his course. ;-)

Here's your number one problem: nobody then expressed issues the same way you do now.
And even if you find occasional hints of such concerns published in newspapers, if you read it again more carefully (here, for example), they are actually concerned about something quite different and so you are imposing your interpretations on them, as if you somehow know better than they did their own minds!!

And who does that kind of thing?
Only one group and it's Marxists who insist against all contrary evidence that their's and their's only is the correct interpretation of history.
I say that's nonsense.

Of course, when it comes to slavers, that's a different story, since they said directly and clearly what they intended, i.e."

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."

No ambiguity there, clearly Mississippians were motivated by their intentions to protect slavery's economic value from perceived threats by Abe Lincoln's Black Republicans.
We don't need to debate that, since they said it clearly.

Unionists never spoke in such terms, nor did Jefferson Davis for that matter, but whereas the former drives you nuts with denials, you have no problem accepting Davis at his words.

And one reason why Republicans never spoke of the economics of slavery was simply that very few, if any, were involved in it -- those who were involved were virtually all Democrats.

And once again: $200 million in slave-produced cotton exports was about 5% of our $4.4 billion economy (in today's terms equivalent to $1 trillion), meaning it was indeed real money.
Now, it happens that $1 trillion today is the value of US-European trade.
So ask yourself: would President Trump take us to war just to keep that $1 trillion "money flow from Europe" going?
Of course not, that's nuts, though you could well expect some very intense negotiations.

Point again is: for war there must be more than just economics at stake.
Consider North Korea -- would we go to war there just over economics?
No, but we certainly would if NOKOs began bombing our troops in South Korea.

That's my objection to my old Marxist history professor, and also to you.