“I’m well aware that you can find quotes from all sorts of people in the past that can be made to support the propaganda you are trying to propagate.”
I’ve been thinking about what you wrote here. Why would it be that there should be so many quotes from “all sorts of people” contradicting your stance on the cause of the war, if what you say was so patently obvious back then? These are quotes from Southerners who were actually leading the charge to dissolve the union, not foreigners weighing in from abroad.
Were they stupid? Duped? Ignorant? What explains this odd dichotomy.
I believe I have already explained that to you. What northern industrialist is going to say "We have to stop the South to protect my fortune!" What Southern Politician is going to say "We want to leave the Union because it will enable us to transfer a huge amount of money currently going into Northern pockets into Southern pockets! "
People sold what they wanted to do as an idea they thought the public would support, not one they knew would provoke a backlash against them.
But if you think the money people weren't looking at the bottom line, you are crazy.
Several Northern newspapers saw what was going on and wrote about it in their editorials.
"Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion ....Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation"..... North American Review (Boston October 1862)
"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow." .... Chicago Daily Times December 1860
"the mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports....by a revenue system verging on free trade...." .... Boston Transcript 18 March 1861
The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over....If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....if the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North. We now see whither our tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. WE WERE DIVIDED AND CONFUSED UNTIL OUR POCKETS WERE TOUCHED." New York Times March 30, 1861
Once they understood the money ramifications of Southern secession, they pulled a "Look Squirrel!" effort to get people to focus on another made up cause. They created the illusion that slavery was the problem, rather than the desire for New York, Boston and Washington DC to rule the Empire.