It's OK to violate the Constitution if doing so promotes one's own ideas. Especially for a great idea like abolishing slavery or keeping the Union together. Others do that too regarding their own "great ideas". It's done all the time with the 1st amendment regarding both religion and speech; the 2nd and gun rights. Or it's even permissible to find things in it that aren't there like the "Constitutional right to privacy" to protect abortion so American children can be murdered without consequence. Many justify the violation of the clear language of the Constitution to mold society to conform to their personal ideas.
You asked, "States Rights to do 'what' exactly? The right for the people of each state to decide for themselves how their own local society should be ordered. Not for some bureaucrat thousands of miles away to dictate and regulate it.
The Constitution is clear: Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Nations are never permanent. National borders are never permanent. Persia, Assyria, Greece, Rome, The Dynasties of China, The Empires of England and Japan all disintegrated a piece at a time until they grew too weak to defend against the rise of competitor nations.
America's ultimate fate is no different. Eventually, we will either be defeated by another or disintegrate from within due to the misguided or corrupt efforts of people willing to violate the principles which led to greatness, for the sake of their own issue. Perhaps that will be 1,000 years from now. Perhaps sooner.
There will either be one Constitution that 300 million Americans agree to abide by resulting in an orderly society or there will be 300 million ideas as to what the Constitution means and growing anarchy.
‘You asked, “States Rights to do ‘what’ exactly? The right for the people of each state to decide for themselves how their own local society should be ordered. Not for some bureaucrat thousands of miles away to dictate and regulate it.’
First, I agree with everything you said in the 1st paragraph of your post.
That said, I wasn’t actualy ‘asking’ States Rights to do what exactly. It was rhetorical. The CSA constitution ANSWERED that question in 1860.
It was about economics. Everything beyond that was a rationalization, including the ‘Lost Cause’ myth promoted by Jubal Early, and many others that were bitter about losing the Civil War, and sought scapegoats. Longstreet was a particular target of Early, he needed one to hang the blame on and make the ‘Lost Cause’ myth ‘fit’.