[DiogenesLamp]

In 1860 Southern & Northern Democrats had no problems with the "DC swamp" so long as they ruled over it.

So? Since they were creating most of the tax revenue, I can see why they would want to control the institution that does all the spending.

Where things went sideways was when the Wealthy, Urban Liberal elites gained control of the government, while the South was paying the vast majority of all the taxes.

Tax and spend, with other people's money. Borrow huge sums, run up massive deficits. Now who does that sound like in modern parlance?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "So? Since they were creating most of the tax revenue,
I can see why they would want to control the institution that does all the spending."

Sadly for DiogenesLamp's theory of everything, our Declaration of Independence never said "all dollars are created equal", meaning those with the most dollars got the most votes.
Instead it says, "all men are created equal", meaning in essence: one man one vote.
The wealthy don't get more votes, even though they can often use their wealth to persuade the rest of us of their viewpoints.

So, what did wealthy Southern tax payers buy with their tax money?
Here are some items:

1. After slaveholder President Jackson's supported "tariff of abominations" in 1828, Southern Democrats voted constant tariff reductions until by 1860 they were down to about half the Jackson levels.

2. In 1846 Southern Democrats supported the Mexican War (which Whig Lincoln opposed) to add Texas a slave state.
   The Mexican war cost 13,000 US lives and $171 million at a time when Federal revenues were about $50 million per year, half "paid for" by Deep South cotton exports.

3. Two dozen US coastal forts protecting Southern ports costing typically $1 million each.
   Fort Pulaski in Georgia is an example:
   
   At the same time only half a dozen forts were built for Northern ports.

4. The 1850 Compromise which made fugitive slave law enforcement a Federal, not state responsibility.

5. The 1854 Gadsden Purchase for $10 million proposed by Southern President Pierce's Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, as a Southern route for his transcontinental railroad.

6. The 1857 SCOTUS Dred Scott decision all but making abolition unconstitutional.

So any claims that wealthy Southerners didn't get their "money's worth" from Federal government are just ludicrous.