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I have read all of those, even the crypto socialist idiot Beard (you might guess that I have no respect for his economic determinism BS).,/p>

While I don't agree with Beard's socialist sympathies, I do agree with him that MONEY is what people almost always fight over. The real money was in the tariffs and government subsidies for industry. That was Lincoln's whole economic plan he inherited from his hero Henry Clay. That was economically ruinous for the Southern states and they knew it. Slavery was tied up in the sectional argument as were differing views of federal vs state power, but at heart it was a political struggle over economics.

As to the Corwin Amendment that you keep citing, people like Lincoln had no problem with it because Constitutionally, it changed nothing. Slavery, where it then existed, could only be eliminated with a constitutional amendment. With the 3/4 state approval requirement, there was no chance then or now of it being eliminated. But where Lincoln and others refused to budge was on the issue of slavery in the territories. They were strongly opposed and believed that they had to constitutional rights to forbid it.

The Corwin Amendment shows quite clearly that they were prepared to explicitly protect slavery effectively forever. It would be impossible to this day to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery if the 15 states that still had slavery did not consent. Ergo, this constitutional amendment made clear that there was going to have to be a generous compensation offer to gain their consent.

The Western territories were only important insofar as they meant 2 additional votes in the Senate for either side. There was no question about the House given the North's larger population but in the Senate, the Southern states could still block ruinous economic legislation. Once the Southern states decided to secede, they were happy to do so without making any claim upon the western territory of the US. If they were out they would no longer need votes in the Senate and much of the west was quite unsuitable for cotton/tobacco growing anyway.

Jefferson Davis when still in the US Senate said it explicitly. “What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.”

Lincoln's first inaugural address stated this clearly. Slavery where it existed was safe, but there would be no expansion.

Correct. In his first inaugural address Lincoln made it quite clear that slavery was safe but it was all about the tax money he wanted to collect. He said it more clearly in discussion with the Virginia delegation sent to ask him if he was going to start a war. "But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861.

The people who you claim were simply fighting tariffs, not only failed to mention tariffs, but knew intuitively that without new markets to sell their excess slaves to, they would soon be demographically swelled by the slave population. Finding new markets for slaves was of the upmost importance to them if they didn't want to end up dead like in Haiti.

Yeah this is bunk. The slave population was growing no faster than the White population. As for not mentioning Tariffs, Southern politicians mentioned tariffs over and over again. The two largest newspapers - in both Charleston and New Orleans talked about tariffs extensively. Georgia's declaration of causes went on at length about tariffs and grossly unequal federal government subsidies to Northern interests. South Carolina attached the address of Robert Barnwell Rhett to their declaration of secession and sent it out along with their declaration. In his address, Rhett talked at length about tariffs. To wit:

The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle, self government, and self taxation, the criterion of self government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies, were different and antagonistic. Great Britain was desirous of carrying out the policy of all nations toward their Colonies, of making them tributary to their wealth and power. She had vast and complicated relations with the whole world. Her policy toward her North American Colonies, was to identify them with her in all these complicated relations; and to make them bear, in common with the rest of the Empire, the full burden of her obligations and necessities. She had a vast public debt; she had a European policy and an Asiatic policy, which had occasioned the accumulation of her public debt, and which kept her in continual wars. The North American Colonies saw their interests, political and commercial, sacrificed by such a policy. Their interests required, that they should not be identified with the burdens and wars of the mother country. They had been settled under Charters, which gave them self government, at least so far as their property was concerned. They had taxed themselves, and had never been taxed by the Government of Great Britain. To make them a part of a consolidated Empire, the Parliament of Great Britain determined to assume the power of legislating for the Colonies in all cases whatsoever. Our ancestors resisted the pretension. They refused to be a part of the consolidated Government of Great Britain.

The Southern States, now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British parliament. "The General Welfare," is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation, this "General Welfare" requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern State, are compelled to meet the very despotism, their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.

And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.

There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern toward the Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear toward Great Britain. Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them, were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them, would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which drove them on to Revolution. Yet this British policy, has been fully realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated…… To make, however, their numerical power available to rule the Union, the North must consolidate their power. It would not be united, on any matter common to the whole Union in other words, on any constitutional subject for on such subjects divisions are as likely to exist in the North as in the South. Slavery was strictly, a sectional interest. If this could be made the criterion of parties at the North, the North could be united in its power; and thus carry out its measures of sectional ambition, encroachment, and aggrandizement. To build up their sectional predominance in the Union, the Constitution must be first abolished by constructions; but that being done, the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things.