The central issue was not "property rights", the issue was "states' rights." Slavery was a catalyst to bring the issue to the forefront. I'm torn about whether I'm glad we lost because it set the groundwork for creation of the mammoth federal government that now exists.
True, but discussions of states' rights were routinely in the context of property rights, i.e., the right to own and dispose of slave property, to transport such property in free states and territories unmolested, and to call upon the federal government to enforce such rights via the Fugitive Slave act.
Agreed about mammoth government, of course, but were the seeds really planted in the 1860's or in the 1930's?