Three or four out of 11 states issued slavery specific reasons. Virginia said they were leaving because the Federal government had become a tyrannical power intent upon forcing subjugation on others.
For some reason, nobody ever wants to cite the most important state of Virginia, they prefer to cite much less significant states.
point to slavery as the central issue.
His argument in a nutshells is this. The refusal of Northern states to return fugitive slaves was a clear violation of the Constitutional requirement to do so. It equated to a "breach of contract" by the Northern states against the Southern states, and therefore was a valid legal argument to justify getting out of the contract.
Their real complaint was the 200 million per year in their annual trade value being under Northern control where 60% of the money was kept by the Northeast and Washington DC.
But because the Constitution clearly gives congress the authority to set taxes, there was no legal remedy for the problem, and it could not serve as a valid legal argument to get out of the contract.
So now the Civil War is due to slaves not being sent back to their owners?
Fascinating.
South Carolina was the very first. States like Virginia were objecting more in principle to the idea that South Carolina couldn’t leave if it wanted to. So, the determining factor remains slavery. No dispute over slavery, fugitive slaves, etc. no secession.