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. . . they had not one shread of constitutional justification for having done so, nor had they any constitutional right to have impeded the Southern states when they chose to withdraw from a Union for which they were paying 83% of all the expenses, while getting precious little back for it, save insults from the North.

Wow! While I realize that most of the government revenue came from tariffs in those day, I had no idea it was so lopsided and would love to see documentation of the same.

I'm also told by relatives (Texans) that Texas specifically retained their right to leave and/or break themselves up in up to five smaller states in the deal which admitted them to the union? Does anyone else have more details to confirm or quell this?

The break-up thing is true, the right to leave is false.

Wow! While I realize that most of the government revenue came from tariffs in those day, I had no idea it was so lopsided and would love to see documentation of the same.

You would look in vain because no such documentation exists. The overwhelming majority of tariff revenue was collected in Northern ports. Prior to the rebellion, the man who would become the confederate vice-president was putting the amount of tariff revenued generated in the North at over 75%. And I think he was being conservative.

I'm also told by relatives (Texans) that Texas specifically retained their right to leave and/or break themselves up in up to five smaller states in the deal which admitted them to the union? Does anyone else have more details to confirm or quell this?

The article incorporating Texas as a territory did contain that clause, but once Texas was a state they didn't have any rights that any other state didn't have. And that included walking out of the Union or splitting without congressional approval.

There was a Statesman from North Carolina whom I don’t recall his name, who summarized that lopsidedness before Congress.

I wish I’d access to his oration because it spelled out many a point of disparity between the industrialized North and the agrarian South.

“While I realize that most of the government revenue came from tariffs in those day, I had no idea it was so lopsided and would love to see documentation of the same.”

Certainly. Your best and primary source is the data listed in the ‘Statistical History of the United States’. I can give that to you if you need it.

Next, a respected economist of the time, Thomas Kettell, used the data from the Treasury department in his book in 1859. He was often quoted by newspapers and orators of the time.

More up to date authors quote the same government data. Examples are Charles Beard and Charles Adams, in both his books.

The volume and value of southern grown products as a percentage of exports was widely known by the members of the legislature of the time, and frequently quoted in the congressional records.