Why is so hard for Republicans to call a spade a spade? [Pun intended.] Yes, the whole country, Northern states included, was implicated in the institution, but it was the South that made it a sacred cause worth fighting and dying for.
The secessionists were very direct in their language: the only states’ right they were championing was the right for humans to own other humans.
An excerpt from Alexander Stephens on Slavery and the Confederate Constitution, 1861
Confederates had to quickly create not only a government, but also a nation, including all of the cultural values required to foster patriotism. In this speech Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, proclaims that slavery and white supremacy were not only the cause for secession, but also the “cornerstone” of the Confederate nation.
“The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it-when the ‘storm came and the wind blew, it fell.’
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. [Applause.] This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
‘the only states’ right they were championing was the right for humans to own other humans.’
have you not been on this forum long enough to know that sensible commentary is verboten when it comes to the Civil War...?
Let us say for the sake of argument that this is correct.
Does this mean they would have had a right to secede for a reason you consider a better reason?
The salient question is "did they have a right to secede, or did they not?"
Let's answer the question as to whether states had a right to secede, then you can explain why they can only exercise this right if you agree with the reason.