The South was 25% of the population and they were paying 80% of the taxes in the US which were being used to subsidize Northern industries. There is no way around that.
The declaration of secession included language from every faction including minority factions like slave owners who had a lot of money. Slavery wasn't originally part of it. They pissed and moaned until they got everything included in it. These people were not the driving force of secession as secession and nullification movements started 30 years before the Civil War when slavery wasn't even on the table. Furthermore slavery WASN'T on the table in the Civil War either. The North via New York and Ohio introduced a constitutional amendment, the Corwin Amendment which forbid the interference in slavery. Congress passed it too. It read : "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." It was not ratified because the South seceded anyway the two largest states did so AFTER Lincoln put a naval blockade on his own country to collect the import and export taxes.
The CSA constitution changed things that we accept today a) it gave term limits b)it gave a line item veto and c) section 8 (I) was changed to
"The Congress shall have power – To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States"
I will remind you that five Northern states also had slaves, actually they all allowed slaves just not as to scale as the south. Other Northern States forbid foreign blacks from even entering the state such as Lincolns home state and the black code laws. And the 13th amendment which freed the slaves was rejected by 3 northern states and only 1 southern state. Let's think they just lost 400,000 people to free the slaves then vote against freeing the slaves? It was never about slavery. It was about as Lincoln said "preserving the union" Lincoln didn't even bring up the issue of slaves until the middle of the war.
Lincoln said "There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ..."
He also said "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position."
And he said "Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man."
And pay attention to this Lincoln said " I HAVE NO PURPOSE DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TO INTERFERE WITH THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY IN THE STATES WHERE IT EXIST. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
And "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." -Abe Lincoln your white separatist hero.
