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or maybe they were not going to trust the Lincoln administration regardless. After all slavery was legal in the Constitution and there was a recent Supreme Court decision that very clearly stated the Federal Government had absolutely no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery in any state where it was legal. As long as the slave states maintained parity in the Senate, slavery was safe. As long as A Democrat or a Southerner was President, slavery was safe. But now anti slave Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate. The incoming President was a Republican. The deep South states felt that the Government would at some time in the future take adverse action against the labor system that made the South wealthy.

This is the popular theory, but more accurately stated. Many people say it's all about the "expansion" of slavery, but that claim doesn't pass cursory examination.

I have long said that the reasons for the South wanting to leave are irrelevant to their right to leave for any reason. The only salient point here is whether or not an association voluntarily joined can be voluntarily left.

The Declaration of Independence says "yes", and the Constitution is silent on the matter. The concept of "Freedom of Association" requires the corollary of "Freedom of Disassociation", and so by the base foundation of natural law, people cannot be required to associate with people whom they do not wish to associate.

Whatever were the South's reasons for wanting independence, they had a right to have it, and so I see efforts to focus on their reasons as attempts to deliberately distract from the core principle involved.

"Consent of the governed."

Do you really think that the deep South states would have seceded if Breckenridge had been elected President.

...by the base foundation of natural law, people cannot be required to associate with people whom they do not wish to associate.

It's pretty ironic to make that argument in the defense of slaveowners.