No, the CSA constitution protected slave trading with their neighbor, the United States.
while simultaneously illegalizing tariffs for pork.
Well, sorta. What it actually says is that any internal improvements can't be paid for out of the treasury. Instead, they have to be levied directly on the beneficiaries (" in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.")
It's clear that this was their major issue (the tariffs).
If the presence of a clause in their constitution is evidence of an issue's importance, what are we to make of the six different clauses in that document dealing with slavery? (Article 1, Section 9, Clauses 1, 2, & 4; Article 4, Section 2, Clauses 1 & 3, Article 4, Section 3, Clause 3--" In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government')
So expensive that it involved insurance on the luxury level and that the mortality rate of the sailors bringing transporting slaves on ships was higher than that of their cargo because the slaves were worth something.
What on earth are you talking about? The international slave trade was dead by 1850, apart from a few smugglers, who I don't think bothered with insurance. The fact is that about a quarter to a third of southern families owned slaves. And didn't you just get down saying that the slaves weren't an important part of the economy, at least compared to tariffs?
but why would states, even northern ones(!) decades before come close to secession over tariffs?
That's easy. They didn't. The Hartford Convention (which I assume you're thinking of), wasn't about tariffs, it was about the trade embargo that Madison had imposed against Britain. And while a few hotheads tossed around the idea of secession, it doesn't appear in the final report of the convention. But that didn't stop the Democrats from seizing on the issue and working it for all it was worth. In the words of historian Samuel Eliot Morison: "Democratic politicians, seeking a foil to their own mismanagement of the war and to discredit the still formidable Federalist party, caressed and fed this infant myth until it became so tough and lusty as to defy both solemn denials and documentary proof."
Also, why would northerners be overwhelmingly against a civil war with their southern brothers and sisters?
I might be going out on a limb here, but maybe it was because they thought war is a bad thing.
Why would there be four slave states in the North? Come on!
Again, I might be going out on a limb here, but maybe they thought secession was a bad idea.
There was widespred sentiment in the North to allow the Southern states to secede! This is a fact.
There was some sentiment to let them go their own way, but once they opened fire on Sumter, that vague sentiment rapidly evaporated and half a million men volunteered for duty.
Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory they inhabit
Ah, Lincoln's Mexican War speech. Have you actually read the whole thing? Despite that Lost Causer favorite out-of-context quote, Lincoln's not talking about unilateral secession. He's talking about using force to take what you can. Here's the context:
If, as is probably true, Texas was exercising jurisdiction along the western bank of the Nueces, and Mexico was exercising it along the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, then neither river was the boundary; but the uninhabited country between the two, was. The extent of our teritory in that region depended, not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it) but on revolution Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,-- most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones. As to the country now in question, we bought it of France in 18O3, and sold it to Spain in 1819, according to the President's statements. After this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still later, Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as she carried her revolution, by obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling, submission of the people, so far, the country was hers, and no farther.The south, unfortunately, couldn't carry her revolution anywhere.
Good grief. Lincoln stated, 'Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.' Sound familiar? It's from the Declaration of Independence: 'That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.'
Lincoln goes on to state '[t]his is a most valuable,-- most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.' The right of revolution that you refer to has existed since the dawn of time. Lincoln refers to the "revolutionary" idea of self government by the people, stated in the DoI, not of the divine/hereditary rule of kings which the DoI rejected.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. The Civil War began because of two things: tariffs, politics, and Lincoln's totatlitarian ways.
Lincoln ran on the Morrill Tariff, said two weeks before his inauguration that no other issue was as important. As for the politics part, the newly formed pro-tax, anti-states rights Republican Party wanted to stop the spread of the Democratic Party out west and ending slavery was part of that.
As for Lincoln's dictatorial tendencies, he centralized the government of this country like no one before, and no one since. He fulfilled his mentor Henry Clay's vision of a huge federal government and massive taxation, and "American System" endless pork projects.
It must also be pointed out that he utterly botched the seriousness of the war, almost had to abandon the White House right after the very first major battle, and set in motion a bloodbath that would amount to six million dead Americans in today's numbers.
This is a man who is praised by communists (the 3000 Americans who went to Spain to fight for the communists during the Spanish Civil War called themselves the Abe Lincoln Brigade), praised by Hitler.
He was a dictatorial politician, locking up anyone who spoke out against the war even in areas where the war was unpopular with virtually everyone. Suspension of habeus corpus, destruction of civilians in the south, women and children faced with a scorched earth campaign by his top generals. This was never, ever about slavery. It was about collecting taxes (he threatened war over the tariff, not slavery, in his first presidential speech), locking up the west for the Republicans, and federalizing the country.