Glad to see someone get to one of the real causes: MONEY. As I understand it, duties and tariffs provided most of the income for the central government at that time, and it wasn’t called “King Cotton” for nothing. Also, there’s always a lot of money to be made for the “connected” during wartime, and this has been true forever. Most things change over time, but human nature isn’t one of them.
Another contributing factor was the money and influence behind the completion between the railroad companies to connect to the west coast.
Before Lincoln, “Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (who later became president of the Confederate States of America) initiated the task of surveying western routes to the Pacific Coast.
There were eight options put forth running along various, north-to-south parallels. Due to the ongoing issue of “slavery” Congress could not agree on which.
As a result the entire undertaking remained dormant for years. As tensions between northern and southern states grew it reached a crescendo when Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860.
With the nation’s fracturing, northern leaders settled on the central option although its construction did not begin until 1862 and was not finished until May 10, 1869.”
https://www.american-rails.com/1850s.html