Look at the coal industry in this era. We owe the rise of labor Unions in a large part to New York controlling the value of coal and setting the price low enough to cause massive labor unrest.
But it didn't. And the states that did ratify the amendment did so on their own, not at the behest of New York City or New York state.
Seward guaranteed that New York would pass it, and I think he knew what he was talking about.
On another website, I have another civil war discussion going on, and a point was made about what would have happened had the South capitulated quickly after the invasion.
I put forth the point that it was likely an absolute certainty that the Corwin amendment would have been ratified in an effort to avoid a future conflict.
I think if the South had given up quickly, we would have a constitutional amendment protecting slavery forever.
First of all, an incredible number of things would have had to have been different for the South to surrender shortly after the war began.
Secondly, there would have been no need for a Corwin Amendment if the South had surrendered. There was general agreement that the amendment wasn't really needed. The Constitution already protected slavery in states that wanted it. The Corwin Amendment was a desperate attempt to keep a few slave states in the union by giving them something that they would think was ironclad guarantee.
Surrender would make such an amendment unnecessary. It would mean that the rebels had accepted Lincoln's election and its results (that was something the rebels wouldn't do easily, which is why an early surrender wouldn't happen). It would meant that Southerners accepted his promise to leave slavery alone where it existed (and also his power to appoint anti-slavery officials to jobs in the slave states). It would also mean that the victorious Northerners wouldn't have to make gestures to appease the South. To say that ratification of the amendment was "likely an absolute certainty" is (besides being internally contradictory -- if it's "likely" it's not an "absolute certainty") absurd.
The territories couldn't grow cotton, and that was that.
Not much corn was grown in Kentucky. Tobacco, hemp, and corn cultivation did keep the slaves busy. Romans, Spaniards and others used slaves for mining. And of course, cotton had been grown in Arizona for centuries. Slaveowners needed new slave states for political reasons, and uses would be found for slave labor.
The primary organization responsible for putting forth this allegation was the "Free Soil Party", located in New York New York.
The Free Soil Party was founded in upstate New York. Most of the people there or their parents had come from New England, and many of their children had moved or were planning to move further west. Slavery in the territories was a real issue for them (a split in the state Democratic Party also provided an opportunity for the party). I don't know if they had a headquarters anywhere, but I don't think you do either. As I've said many times before, if you have any evidence that they had a headquarters in New York City, it's long past time to produce it.
You've already said that New York City depended on money from the South. What reason would they have to upset slaveowners and risk disrupting flows of trade and money? You also don't seem to understand that, while money always plays a role in politics, the country was more democratic in those days. There was no mass media telling people what to think. Newspaper editors might try, but they weren't as potent an influence as today's media. Small town people could act on their own. It wasn't all a matter of "astroturfing."
Back to letting other people do your thinking for you, eh?
Some people do read books and articles and don't assume that they have all the answers already.