"The South did not attempt secession because they feared a strong central government."
They (South Carolina), followed by others, seceded due to the promises of the 1860 Republican platform that would stress the Southern culture and its economy. Infrastructure expenditures and taxation were about to be unequally applied to the sections. The Constitutional protections were being eliminated due to election reapportionment. They saw no remedy except for separation. But separation did not bring war.
"They did so because the Republicans ran on the platform of limiting the growth of slavery."
That was one issue. Another was the transcontinental railroad that was to be built with public funds. Its route would aid the growth of the Northern states over the Southern states, funded with the tariffs generated with the overseas sales of Southern products.
Another issue was the Morill tariff, designed to fund these projects. This would reduce the buying power of Southern products, and inflate the prices of Northern products sold South.
"This is what they saw as a threat to their 'rights'."
Actually, their "rights" were guaranteed by the American Constitution. The threat came from the Republicans, and the army they inherited.
"They did not think each state had a right to govern its own people when they demanded that Northern States return runaway slaves and used the Federal gov't to enforce that law."
The 'they' you refer to were Federal judges. And they enforced Federal law.
"This nation was either going to be either all free or all slave."
Lincoln said that before he was elected, but reneged on that in April of 1861.
"The Confederate flag represents the side that wanted it all slave."
The Confederate Flag represented the flag of the Confederate states and its Constitution of dozens of guaranteed rights. To select one and negatively label those people is absurd, ignorant, and naive.
"But this thread is on school clothing not the Confederate flag."
You brought it up to expound your abusive history lesson. Keep it to yourself.
First, I did not bring it up, it was brought up by several other posters.
Now, as for the facts.
Lincoln broke no pledges regarding the Constitution.
Some of the Southern States had seceded before he took office.
Lincoln did what any President would have done, he enforced the laws.
Regarding other economic issues, while they were factors, the key issue was slave expansion.
This was admitted by the Vice President of the Confederacy, A.H. Stephens, in his Cornerstone speech, saying the Confederacy was going to built on the Cornerstone of the inequality of the races, not the equality as depicted by the Declaration.
Regarding the fugitive slave act, it was legal, and the South had no qualms about using that 'dreaded' Federal power when it was their own purposes.
The facts are that the South split the Democratic Party over slavery before it even seceded from the Union.
The Confederacy and its flag do not represent freedom for anyone, they represent tyranny at its worst and crushing the Confederacy was one of the GOP's greatest moments.