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had ancestors that fought on the side of the confederacy. None of my ancestors ever participated in any slave ownership, nor would they have joined the fight to protect slavery. They fought to oppose a tyrannical federal government. This was the endangerment to their way of life. They lost the war, and the federalism that they opposed is now imposed on all of us.

You didn't answer my question. What aspect of the "Southern way of life" was he defending other than slavery? And what policies, aside from those which the South feared the new President-Elect, Abraham Lincoln would impose to stop the spread of slavery, did they object to?

The bottom line is, all of these "determination of states to do whatever they like" and "Southern culture" arguments really boil down to the issue of slavery. South Carolina seceded because a President had been elected who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska and Fugitive Slave Acts, and who was determined to stop the spread of slavery. Here for instance is the Ordinance of Secession of South Carolina, which states explicitly that slavery is the cause!

"It wasn't about slavery" is the true myth.