One of these factors may have been protective and other tariffs. I'm sure you will also agree that it is human nature to blame your problems on factors caused by others rather than on your own failures as an individual or society. So when southerners thought of their problems they certainly had an incentive to blame it on the North.
Nevertheless, if a federal (or confederate) government were to be maintained, funds would have to be raised. Most of the apologists for the South seem to assume that tariffs could be dumped and the government run on air. Tariffs on imports are easily collected and require minimal intrusion on the lives of those who eventually pay the tax.
Since southerners objected to the tariff, I assume they had other proposed mechanisms for raising money. Perhaps a direct tax imposed on each slave, the single largest category of property in the South? LOL
It is quite obvious that the South had dominated the copuntry up through 1850 by allying itself with the agrarian northwest against the industrializing northeast.
They they went too far. The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision caused the considerable majority of folks in the northwest to ally themselves with the northeast against the south. The northwest viewed freedom as even more important. IMO the south viewed maintaining the absence of freedom as equally important.
Sectional aggrandizement and partial legislation favoring the North were listed as causes for secession in at least the Texas and Georgia cause documents.
Agreed. However, I believe all or almost all of the state documents listed threats to the institution of slavery as their primary reason.
Using your numbers above, the South apparently viewed paying $20M/year in "tribute" to the North as a greater problem than even a potential threat to accumulated capital worth well over $2,000M.
I agree that tariffs were the right way to raise funds. The Confederate Congress created a tariff rate below that of the 1857 US tariff. I presume they had calculated that the rates would provide enough revenue to run their government. Shortly afterwards, the US passed the Morrill Tariff. All of a sudden the North had a tariff that was (I'm guessing) about twice the Southern tariff. All hell then broke loose in the Northern ports. Northern import firms closed and went out of business. Imports to Northern ports dropped sharply. Tariff revenue fell. Port officials and newspaper editorials beseeched Lincoln to do something. If we are to believe reports of the time, Lincoln expressed concern about where his revenue would come from.
The North did this to themselves. It was due largely to passing the Morrill Tariff. That and the fact that there was now a low tariff country to the south of them. European imports to the South were going to be shipped directly to Southern ports with their cheaper tariff. Southerners could now buy European goods more cheaply than Northern ones. However, Southerners now had to pay a tariff on Northern goods. They were going to buy less goods from the North. The prices of Northern goods would have to drop if they wanted to maintain volume and Northern employment.
Using your numbers above, the South apparently viewed paying $20M/year in "tribute" to the North as a greater problem than even a potential threat to accumulated capital worth well over $2,000M.
I don't think you are thinking broadly enough about the causes of the war. The tariff situation wasn't the main driver for the South. I suspect it was for the North though.
In my oft stated opinion, slavery was the main cause or occasion for the South to secede and to fight. It was easier for Southern politicians to generate enthusiasm for secession using slavery than using tariff rates.
On the other hand, I think the tariff situation (i.e., the potential employment problem in the North that might be brought about by the disparate tariffs of the two regions and the loss of tariff revenue to run the Northern government and pay their debts) was a strong driving force for Lincoln to provoke war and blockade Southern ports.
I believe Lincoln did provoke the war. He was no dummy. He thought outside the box as to what to do about his situation. First, he supported the proposed Corwin amendment that would have prevented the Federal government from abolishing slavery thus wooing the South back into the Union. That didn't work; it was too late. He had to do something else. No doubt he was smart enough to realize that sending a battle fleet down to Charleston would likely provoke a shooting war. And it did.