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All too often our friends simply don't want to believe what their eyes show them. I always prefer multiple, contemporary sources. Here are some just at the time of South Carolina's secession.

"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow" ~Chicago Daily Times, December 10, 1860

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...we have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually." ~Chicago Daily Times, December 10, 1860 "

"The government cannot well avoid collecting the federal revenues at all Southern ports, even after the passage of secession ordinances; and if this duty is discharged, any State which assumes a rebellious attitude will still be obliged to contribute revenue to support the Federal Government or have her commerce entirely destroyed" ~Philadelphia Press, December 21, 1860

The first two above were published a few days before the first state seceded.

At this point, the newspapers were in a bit of a panic about the revenue.

The last article was written a day after secession. It is good to note that nowhere does it complain of slavery as either a problem or cause of of secession....unlike many here who would minimize the financial panic by presenting slavery hyperbole.

Exactly. I've also seen statements from Northern editorial staff that they should use the guns of Ft. Sumter to destroy the port of Charleston so as to prevent the establishment of European trade at the greatly reduced tariff.

Something to the effect of the guns having sufficient reach to do that.

And Northern Apologists wonder why the South didn't like the idea of a Federal fort overlooking the entrance to their port city. The idea of using it to destroy their city and their commerce was already voiced!

PeaRidge: "All too often our friends simply don't want to believe what their eyes show them.
I always prefer multiple, contemporary sources.
Here are some just at the time of South Carolina's secession."

Nobody except Lost Causers "denies" anything factual, but you are placing more importance on such matters than they deserve.

PeaRidge quoting: "Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow" ~Chicago Daily Times, December 10, 1860

It's most curious that when I go searching for Chicago newspapers in 1860, there is no "Chicago Daily Times", nor was there ever one.
And this would not be the first time that our Lost Causers, desperate to rewrite history to make their side look good, invented necessary quotes out of thin air.

PeaRidge quoting: "...any State which assumes a rebellious attitude will still be obliged to contribute revenue to support the Federal Government or have her commerce entirely destroyed" ~Philadelphia Press, December 21, 1860

Nor can I find any records of a "Philadelphia Press" from 1860, or from any other year.

So I highly suspect the pro-Confederate propaganda machine has been busy, busy, busy at work concocting historical "evidence" to support its Lost Causer mythology.

Regardless, even if we pretend such quotes were true, they would not shift the blame for starting Civil War at Fort Sumter from Jefferson Davis to some amorphous "wealthy Northeasterners".