In order to have a peaceful secession, a parting of the ways that was fair and equitable to all, you have to consider settling up the debts incurred in the name of all.
That is one reason the slavers bolted. They knew there was no way they could do that.
They clearly bolted, as the record conclusively indicates, to protect their interest in slavery. Loyal Americans opposed them on the basis that you simply can't walk away from democratic principles just because you lose an election. If a dissatified minority always feels like it can just withdraw when they don't like the way things are going, then people cannot be governed by democratic means.
That is why Lincoln's call for volunteers was met so enthusiastically in 1861. Many, many of those volunteers came forward because they thought they were living up to the standards of the Declaration of Independence. After all, what had the federal government done prior to 1860 that was intrusive or overbearing? Not a blessed thing. In fact, southerners had controlled the national executive and judiciary for decades. They had an effective block on any legislation they didn't like through their control of the Senate. When that lever began to fail them, they tried to bolt.
Loyal Americans, with a respect of the true ideals of democracy, stopped that.
In that sense, the war was fought by the slave holders to protect slavery, and by loyal Americans who refused to allow our democracy to be trampled in the ground.
I often ask this,, amnd it NEVER gets any play at all, and won't now.
Where in the history of the USA from 1776-1860 was the long train of abuses of the type that Jefferson speaks to in the D of I regarding "the present king of Great Britain"? It didn't exist. The slavers tried to rend the best government yet devised to promote and perpetuate humany slavery. Their 'secession' was both illegal and immoral. The record is clear.
Walt