Main objective indicates other secondary objectives.
You've admitted that poor southerns had little if any direct stake in the institution of slavery.
So, why are you focusing on slavery to the extent of ignoring everything else, and conflating poor southern whties with rich southern slave owners?
Every southerner, rich or poor,
knew slavery was the blood engine that ran the south. It was the single most valuable commodity in the entire country .
To give you some perspective, The collective wealth tied up in those slaves was over
3 billion dollars.
That is yes, with a B. Three BILLION. Not in today dollars, adjusted for inflation -- Then dollars. Three BILLION in 1860 dollars.
If
you wanted to buy all the railroads, factories and banks in the entire country at that time, it would have only cost you about $2.5 billion.
----> slaves were by far the largest concentration of property in the country. A stunning figure. Think on that.
4 out of every ten in the CSA were slaves, in some states, there were MAJORITY slave populations. Yes, more slave than free.
One third of southern families owned at least one slave -- and the myth it was just the rich who owned them -- is a myth. Plantation owners accounted for a very small percentage. The majority owned just one or two slaves.
Many of these slaves were mortgaged, making them very much in reach to the average southerner.