Replies

DiogenesLamp: "If your actions were going to result in the potential loss of about 700 million per year from the powerful industrial interests of the North, would you talk about it?"

Why not?

Well firstly, it makes you look greedy, and people don't want to admit they are doing something unprincipled because they are greedy.

Secondly, making the North aware of how much money they would be losing would galvanize them to oppose your efforts. By keeping the focus on "slavery", you remind them of how much they don't want you. Telling them you are going to take control of about 700 million per year that was currently being controlled by powerful men in the North, will make them start worrying about their own money, and nothing gets a man ready to fight faster than being told you are going to take some of his income away from him.

Just as "slavery" was a smoke screen for why Lincoln wanted to invade the South, so to was it a smokescreen to disguise the monetary reasons why they wanted out.

That it was always about money becomes clear when you take into account the secession crises of 1828, which no one can deny was just about money. There was no "slavery" issue clouding up people's understanding of each other's motives during the previous secession effort.

DiogenesLamp: "Telling them you are going to take control of about 700 million per year that was currently being controlled by powerful men in the North, will make them start worrying about their own money, and nothing gets a man ready to fight faster than being told you are going to take some of his income away from him."

There are several problems with your argument here, including:

First, your "$700 million per year" is just a figure from your own imagination, not from political discussions in 1860.
Yes, there were concerns expressed in early 1861 about alleged Confederate "free trade", however, "free trade" was never the Confederate plan, and any tariffs Confederate did charge would mean importers paying tariffs twice if they used Confederate ports.
1859: 94% of US tariff revenues came from
Northern & Western ports, only 6% from Southern ports.
Second, we know for certain what did happen with the 100% loss of Confederate states' trade & tariff revenues in 1861.
Union GDP never declined -- it only went up (from $4.3 billion in 1860 to $9.9 billion in 1865).
Even tariff revenues declined only $14 million in 1861 (to $40 million), recovered $10 million of that in 1862, before fully recovering in 1863 (to $69 million).
Third, remember, all those "Reasons for Secession" documents were written with the intention of persuading -- no, not Northerners, rather -- other Southerners on why secession was both necessary and desirable.
The authors, including Rhett and Stephens, trotted out all their most compelling arguments for other Southerners, making their case on why other Southerners should follow their examples.
Those documents were not aimed at Northerners and so Northern reactions were not their concern.

"Reasons for Secession" documents gave the best possible arguments to other Southerners on why secession was necessary.
They did not mention your "$700 million per year", or economics generally nearly as much as they did what mattered most to them: slavery and "states rights".

DiogenesLamp: "Just as "slavery" was a smoke screen for why Lincoln wanted to invade the South, so to was it a smokescreen to disguise the monetary reasons why they wanted out."

Pres. Lincoln did not "invade the South" in 1861 to "free the slaves" -- that was not his stated goal then -- even though seizing Confederate's "Contraband of War" was very much part of Union tactics from almost Day One.
Lincoln's main goal then, and throughout the war, was restoring the Union.
Confiscations (1861), emancipation (1862), abolition (1864), citizenship (1868) & voting rights (1869) for freed slaves were consequences of Lincoln's main focus, restoring the Union.

DiogenesLamp: "That it was always about money becomes clear when you take into account the secession crises of 1828, which no one can deny was just about money.
There was no "slavery" issue clouding up people's understanding of each other's motives during the previous secession effort."

What the 1828 - 1830s "Tariff of Abominations" Nullification Crisis proved was that no reasonable Southerner was willing to declare secession and war on the United States only over tariffs.
Even when, in 1830, tariffs rose to nearly four-times higher than 1860's 15%, only few of the South's most globalist elites were willing to commit treason and rebellion against Pres. Andrew Jackson.
That's why the 1830 Nullification Crisis ended relatively quickly and bloodlessly.

What did motivate a majority of Southerners was slavery, and by 1850 many Southerners ("Fire Eaters") were calling for secession over slavery issues -- issues which were then resolved (at least temporarily) by the Compromise of 1850.
But what was resolved in 1850 became unresolved again by the late 1850s, especially as a result of the 1857 SCOTUS Dred Scot ruling, 1854-1859 "Bleeding Kansas", John Brown's 1859 raid, and from 1856 on, threats from "Black Republicans" with their 1860 leader, "Ape Lincoln".

All of that was about slavery, not tariffs.