The Democrats still had enough votes in the Senate to block anything of that nature.
Below is the speech from Alexander Stephens, against secession
But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against the Constitution, and that, if he carries them out, it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. If he violates the Constitution, then will come our time to act. Do not let us break it because, forsooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for us to act.
(Applause.) I think it would be injudicious and unwise to do this sooner. I do not anticipate that Mr. Lincoln will do anything, to jeopardize our safety or security, whatever may be his spirit to do it; for he is bound by the constitutional checks which are thrown around him, which at this time render him powerless to do any great mischief.
This shows the wisdom of our system. The President of the United States is no Emperor, no Dictator-- he is clothed with no absolute power. He can do nothing, unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Representatives is largely in a majority against him.
In the very face and teeth of the majority of Electoral votes, which he has obtained in the Northern States, there have been large gains in the House of Representatives, to the Conservative Constitutional Party of the country, which I here will call the National Democratic Party, because that is the cognomen it has at the North.
There are twelve of this Party elected from New York, to the next Congress, I believe. In the present House, there are but four, I think. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Indiana, there have been gains. In the present Congress, there were one hundred and thirteen Republicans, when it takes one hundred and seventeen to make a majority.
The gains in the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Indiana, and other States, notwithstanding its distractions, have been enough to make a majority of near thirty, in the next House, against Mr. Lincoln.
Even in Boston, Mr. Burlingame, one of the noted leaders of the fanatics of that section, has been defeated, and a Conservative man returned in his stead.
Is this the time, then, to apprehend that Mr. Lincoln, with this large majority of the House of Representatives against him, can carry out any of this unconstitutional principles in that body?
In the Senate, he will also be powerless. There will be a majority of four against him. This, after the loss of Bigler, Fitch, and others, by the unfortunate dissensions of the National Democratic Party in their States.
Mr. Lincoln can not appoint an officer without the consent of the Senate -- he can not form a Cabinet without the same consent. He will be in the condition of George the Third (the embodiment of Toryism), who had to ask the Whigs to appoint his ministers, and was compelled to receive a Cabinet utterly opposed to his views; and so Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to ask of the Senate to choose for him a Cabinet, if the Democracy or that Party choose to put him on such terms. He will be compelled to do this, or let the Government stop, if the National Democratic Senators (for that is their name at the North), the Conservative men in the Senate, should so determine.
Then how can Mr. Lincoln obtain a Cabinet which would aid him, or allow him to violate the Constitution? Why, then, I say, should we disrupt the ties of this Union, when his hands are tied-- when he can do nothing against us?
I have heard it mooted, that no man in the State of Georgia, who is true to her interests, could hold office under Mr. Lincoln. But I ask, who appoints to office? Not the President alone; the Senate has to concur. No man can be appointed without the consent of the Senate. Should any man, then, refuse to hold office that was given him by a Democratic Senate?
The South had full representation in Congress.
What they did not like is the trend that was moving away from them in the House and the addition of free states to diminish their power in the Senate, which would have eventually led to limitation of slavery
No one was abusing them with taxation.
http://www.pointsouth.com/csanet/greatmen/stephens/stephens-speech.htm
Of course, in the event, they'd have had to wait out the entire industrial revolution -- which is more like what they were seceding from: dehumanization of citizens (to a status very much nearer that of slaves than that of 18th-century citizen-farmers), time-clocks, humiliation by corner-office Napoleons and industrial tin gods. They saw it all coming, armed and liberated from State and regional control by the business faction in control in DC, and they wanted out.
But that isn't what we're arguing.
The fact was, the South seceded, and the argument is over whether they were within their rights so to do.
Then there's all the other stuff about whether Southerners really are unpleasant racist knuckledraggers in Hitchcockian-caricature baggy clothes, snaggly teeth, three-day beards, and slouch hats.
That's a red herring as there were northern Democrats from states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey who favored protection. One of the bill's main co-sponsors in the Senate was Bigler from Pennsylvania - a Democrat - and it was eventually signed by President Buchanan - another Democrat from Pennsylvania.
Below is the speech from Alexander Stephens, against secession
Quoting Stephens on the tariff act in 1860 is fallacious. He was removed from the debates of Congress at that time and did not comprehend the economics of the issue as other members of the House and Senate did.
Senator Wigfall of Texas actually rebutted Stephens' calculation claims on the floor of the chamber and in specific detail:
Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not. As to this body, where do we stand? Why, sir, there are now eighteen non-slaveholding States. In a few weeks we shall have the nineteenth, for Kansas will be brought in. Then arithmetic which settles our position is simple and easy. Thirty-eight northern Senators you will have upon this floor. We shall have thirty to your thirty-eight. After the 4th of March, the Senator from California, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Minnesota will be here. That reduces the northern phalanx to thirty-four...There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust. Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President to give the casting vote. Mr. Lincoln can make his own nominations with perfect security that they will be confirmed by this body"
It should be noted that when time came to pass the Morrill Tariff, Senator Hunter of Virginia - who had delayed the bill from coming to the floor for almost a year by exerting every parliamentary tactic at his disposal - similarly remarked:
No, sir; this bill will pass. And let it pass into the statute-book; let it pass into history, that we may know how it is that the South has been dealt with when New England and Pennsylvania held the power to deal with her interests.
The South had full representation in Congress.
That is simply a lie. The Morrill Tariff passed the House with ease in May of 1860 despite virtually unanimous opposition by every southern member. As I noted, Senator Hunter exerted every bit of parliamentary strength he could to delay the vote in the Senate until after the election hoping for the slim chance that enough votes would emerge to block it. They did not and had every single southern member stayed in the Senate and voted against the Morrill Tariff, the best case scenario they could have hoped for was a tie, in which case Vice President Hamlin would cast the deciding vote in favor.