Confederates in five of the original seven secession states listed slavery as their major or only reason.
Two more Deep South and two Upper South states gave no reasons, period.
Two Upper South states — Virginia and Arkansas — said they seceded over “injury”, “oppression” or “coercion”.
Read numerous posts I’ve made including quotes and sources showing violation of the compact over slavery and the fugitive slave clause of the constitution was merely the pretext for the Southern states to get out from under the partisan sectional legislation of the federal government that was draining their pockets. Had slavery really been their main concern, they would have been only too happy to accept the North’s “slavery forever” constitutional amendment and returned to ratify it. They refused.
I am accusing Southern Political leaders of being just as duplicitious as all politicians are and have always been. Of course they were only too happy to lie if it would get them what they really wanted. The Northern political leaders for their part were equally cynical. They didn’t really give a damn about slavery. What they really cared about was the huge amounts of tax revenue for corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects in the North that the South provided as well as the huge captive market that would fuel the growth of their manufacturing industry.
Note, I am not saying either side was in any way pure or honest here. Everybody’s real concern was money - as always.
I'd say to you: one man's "pretext" is another man's "real reason" and you don't know who considered slavery the "reason" and who just a "pretext".
The fact is that few Southerners had direct contact with tariffs or "Northeastern power brokers" or "money flows from Europe", and so would not respond to calls for secession over such matters.
But every Southerner knew about slavery directly & personally, even if they "owned" no slaves.
A threat to slavery was a threat to all and so that was the appeal by Deep South Fire Eaters to convince their fellow Southerners secession was necessary.
That the threat from "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans was exaggerated & distorted didn't matter, it did its job in winning Deep South secession.
By the way, the Corwin amendment was passed after the last Deep South state declared secession, so was a useless exercise in closing the barn door after the horse was gone.
It did seem to have some effect in Border States so was not entirely wasted.
Flt-bird: "...pretext for the Southern states to get out from under the partisan sectional legislation of the federal government that was draining their pockets."
This is one of the weaker arguments in the Lost Cause quiver, and it was surprisingly made by none other that Robert Rhett himself, in December 1860, when Democrats had ruled Washington, DC, for nearly 60 years, with Southern Democrats the majority of Democrats and making 1860 Washington, DC, just what those Southerners wanted.
So all their complaints about Washington are simply complaints about what they themselves did there for 60 years, which makes no sense.
What does make absolute sense is Southern fears, horrors, terror, fright & panic at the thought that "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans were soon to take over the "consolidated" Washington they themselves created!
Flt-bird: "I am accusing Southern Political leaders of being just as duplicitious as all politicians are and have always been.
Of course they were only too happy to lie if it would get them what they really wanted."
Then we agree more than I had suspected.
But I also think that "cynical" reasons for some were seen as sincere and "real" reasons by many others.
We're talking about human nature here, often a mixture of noble and not-so-noble motives.
Flt-bird: "The Northern political leaders for their part were equally cynical.
They didn’t really give a damn about slavery.
What they really cared about was the huge amounts of tax revenue for corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects in the North that the South provided as well as the huge captive market that would fuel the growth of their manufacturing industry."
So our Lost Causers keep telling us, but the evidence on Lincoln's motives suggests far less his financial interests and far more his constitutional & legal obligations.
That's because rebellion has been recognized since time immemorial as a casus belli, for example the Whiskey Rebellion against President Washington in 1793.
Washington raised up an army of 13,000 to defeat it and the rebels quickly retreated.
But in the American tradition secession alone was not defined as "rebellion", so neither Presidents Buchanan nor Lincoln could move militarily against Confederates.
Lincoln needed an actual military attack against the Union before he could respond and that Jefferson Davis was only too happy to give him.
Why did Jefferson Davis seize Fort Sumter by military force?
Because he wanted to, reason one, and because it would bring the Upper South states into the Confederacy, reason two.
Notice that none of this makes reference to "other reasons" which seem to play such a big role in our Lost Causers' imaginations.
All of it is just straight history, no revisionism required.