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Right.
A “real issue” is essential to the Lost Cause myth, something, anything which might draw our attention away from Confederate slaves.
The basic problem though is that any issue other than slavery was just “ politics as usual” in 1860.
For examples, tariffs went up & down, Federal spending went here or there, all determined by deal-making in proverbial smoke filled rooms.
Sure, some people grumbled, but nobody got enraged over small differences.

This right here is pure lies, propaganda and myth. People got very animated over differences in tariff rates, differences in federal expenditures, federal usurpation of state sovereign rights, etc. Tariff of abominations anyone? Nullification crisis anyone?

But I’m thinking there might indeed be a “real issue” which would send Democrats crashing through windows while howling in terror to get away.
It’s the same “real issue” which still drives Democrats insane today.
What is it?
It’s the very thought of genuine conservative Republicans in charge in Washington, especially the President.

Its really funny you try to equate Republicans of 150 years ago and Democrats of 150 years ago with Republicans and Democrats today. There is no equivalence between them. The Republicans of 150 years ago were for big government. The Democrats were the party of limited government and states’ rights. The two have exactly reversed since then. What you spout today are lies and propaganda embraced by hardcore LEFTISTS.

Indeed, that’s just what Robert Rhett told us in December 1860, and I see no reason to doubt him.

Rhett made the case in 1860 - though he’d been making it for years - that the federal government under the control of the Northern states was treating the Southern states exactly as the British had treated the Colonies. Sure pro forma, the constitution did provide a vote but when a majority can impose taxes that fall overwhelmingly on a minority and use the tax revenue to enrich themselves, they will quickly develop an appetite for ever more of that....kinda like we see with social programs today. If the taxes are paid by a minority, the rest will just vote themselves ever more of other people’s money.

So, let’s say that slavery was the “real reason” for maybe 95% of Deep South secessionists, and simple loss of their power in Washington was the “real reason* for the top 5%.

Do you disagree?

Only about 6% of the population of the Southern states owned slaves. Even at the ridiculously claimed 25% of families PC Revisionists have tried to extrapolate that out to conveniently ignoring that more than one family member frequently was a slave owner, that’s still a relatively small percentage of the population that owned slaves. The vast majority were not animated by something they never had. What they were motivated by though were tariffs they overwhelmingly had to pay in order to drive up the price of manufactured goods which they didn’t make and then to add insult to injury, seeing most of the money the tariff raised lavished on the very people who had voted to drive up the price of the manufactured goods which they but not Southerners produced.

Oh I know. That doesn’t paint a picture of it being a moral crusade nor does that support the little fantasy you’ve constructed of the North being morally superior. Too bad. The reality does not match your little fantasy.

FLT-bird: ***”This right here is pure lies, propaganda and myth.
People got very animated over differences in tariff rates, differences in federal expenditures, federal usurpation of state sovereign rights, etc.
Tariff of abominations anyone?
Nullification crisis anyone?”***

Note my words, “nobody got enraged over small differences.”
The 1828 “Tariff of Abominations” was no “small difference”, but rather two to three times the rates in 1860.
“Tariff of Abominations” were the highest rates in US history, only ever approached in peacetime by the Depression era Smoot Hawley tariffs.
In 1860 US tariffs were among the world’s lowest and were as low as they’d ever been in US history.
Nothing proposed in 1860 would do more than return US tariffs to their historical average levels.
Those were still levels accepted in the past without threats of Nullification or secession.

FLT-bird: ***”Its really funny you try to equate Republicans of 150 years ago and Democrats of 150 years ago with Republicans and Democrats today.
There is no equivalence between them.
The Republicans of 150 years ago were for big government.
The Democrats were the party of limited government and states’ rights.
The two have exactly reversed since then.
What you spout today are lies and propaganda embraced by hardcore LEFTISTS.”***

Nonsense, because Democrats, especially Southerners, in 1860 just as today, loved, loved, looooooooved Big Government, just so long as ***THEY*** ruled it.
For proof, consider that Democrat Congresses & Presidents Pierce & Buchanan DOUBLED the national debt, then doubled it again — they were as spendthrift then as Obama today!!

Democrats then only became suddenly “strict constructionists” when **out of power**.

For more proof consider the 1850 Compromise which moved responsibility for Fugitive Slaves from States to Big **Federal government**.

So, there was nothing, nothing about Big Government 1860 Democrats didn’t like, except when THEY were out of power.
Then, just as today, Democrats went berserk.

FLT-bird: ***”Rhett made the case in 1860 - though he’d been making it for years - that the federal government under the control of the Northern states was treating the Southern states exactly as the British had treated the Colonies.

“Sure pro forma, the constitution did provide a vote but when a majority can impose taxes that fall overwhelmingly on a minority and use the tax revenue to enrich themselves, they will quickly develop an appetite for ever more of that....kinda like we see with social programs today.
If the taxes are paid by a minority, the rest will just vote themselves ever more of other people’s money.”***

In theory you’re correct, in part, and that is what happens today, sometimes with a vengeance.
But historically things were different.
That’s because Washington DC became a Southern Democrat company town in 1801, with election of the “Negro President” Jefferson and his Democrat majorities in Congress.
From 1801 until secession in 1861 Democrats ruled Washington almost continuously, with Southerners the majority of their majority Democrat party.
But Southerners themselves were not always united and I can cite several examples, beginning with your “Tariff of Abominations” which was originally SUPPORTED by Southerners VP Calhoun and President Jackson.
At the same time it was OPPOSED by many New Englanders — so it was never an issue of strictly North vs. South.

Another example is your mention of Henry Clay’s “American System”.
Clay was a Southern born slaveholding plantation owner with no interest, none, nada, in aggrandizing the North at the South’s expense.
What Clay certainly did want was to, ahem, “put Americans first” and, ah, “make America great” by encouraging US manufacturing North, South and West.
And your problem with that is what, exactly?

Even in 1860, when modest Morrill Tariff increases passed the House (but not the Senate) the reason was less to do with loss of Southern majorities than with disunion amongst Southerners.
Just as some Northerners opposed Morrill, some Southerners supported it, or abstained from voting.
So the “Solid South” was far from solid in 1860.

That was the real issue, regardless of how Robert Rhett tried to spin it.
Indeed, that real issue became obvious when only the Deep South declared secession before Fort Sumter and Border Slave States refused to secede even after Confederates formally declared war on the United States.

Do you disagree?

FLT-bird: "Only about 6% of the population of the Southern states owned slaves.
Even at the ridiculously claimed 25% of families PC Revisionists have tried to extrapolate that out to conveniently ignoring that more than one family member frequently was a slave owner, that’s still a relatively small percentage of the population that owned slaves."

Seriously, can you even be honest about this topic?
If you could be honest, you'd confess the truth which is that slave ownership varied from very small and declining percentages in Border South states to much higher and growing percentages in Deep South states.
What were those percentages, exactly?
Well, that depends on how you count, but if you figure even a modest sized average slaveholding family, then some Deep South states came in at just under 50% slaveholders.

Sure, you want us to believe that some families had more than one slaveholder, that's fine, but there were many others -- i.e., singles or young married couples getting started -- who fully intended to purchase slaves as soon as they could afford them.
In other words, they were just as committed to the slavocracy as any large plantation owner.

But the bottim line is this: whatever percentage of slaveholders you chose was absolutely correct in some places and very wrong in others.

The rough estimate of 25% came first from Confederate soldiers themselves as to how many of their fellow soldiers came from slaveholding families.

FLT-bird: "The vast majority were not animated by something they never had.
What they were motivated by though were tariffs they overwhelmingly had to pay in order to drive up the price of manufactured goods which they didn’t make and then to add insult to injury, seeing most of the money the tariff raised lavished on the very people who had voted to drive up the price of the manufactured goods which they but not Southerners produced."

Some scholars have studied collections of Civil War soldiers' letters and found that many discuss slavery.
None discussed tariffs.

Further, your total economic argument about "Southern taxes paid for Northern benefits" is contradicted by both common sense and the facts of history.

Common sense: Democrats ruled Washington and Southerners ruled Democrats, so no spending or taxes passed without Southern approval.
Facts of history: Actual Federal spending summarized by category and Free States vs. slave states.

The historical fact is that Southerners did not pay more than their "fair share" and did not receive less than their "fair share" from Washington, DC, regardless what Fire Eater propagandists like Robert Rhett claimed.

Once again, here is that graphic showing which cities paid how much to Federal Revenues: