That is the connection I recall. I wasn't aware of the wider ideology and transnational ambitions.
I don't understand how you could not have been aware of the wider ideology and transnational ambitions. You brought up Robert Rhett. Wider ideology and transnational ambitions is what he was all about. BTW, he did not make an address declaring S.Carolina's reasons for secession, he made an address to the other Slaveholding States (as to why they should follow S.Carolina) as the self designated spokesman and "father of secession". I have already mentioned what he said a few days after Lincoln's election: "We will expand, as our growth and civilization shall demand - over Mexico - over the isles of the sea - over the far-off Southern tropics - until we shall establish a great Confederation of Republics - the greatest, freest and most useful the world has ever seen."
Rhett's address to the other Slaveholding (southern) States ends like this:
United together, and we must be the most independent, as we are the most important among the nations of the world. United together, and we require no other instrument to conquer peace than our beneficent productions. United together, and we must be a great, free and prosperous people, whose renown must spread throughout the civilized world, and pass down, we trust, to the remotest ages. We ask you to join us in forming a confederacy of Slaveholding States.
One might come to the conclusion that Rhett was a mega-maniacal bigot who put a very clear and strict qualifier on the shangri la fantasy of his confederacy of states. Incidently, he owned two plantations, @two hundred slaves, and ran a newspaper. Do not forget for one minute that slaves were valuable property and the most efficient way to increase your "fold" was to keep your female slaves pregnant (whether by direct intervention of the Master, or by a handpicked stud).