Slavery was evil; secession was illegal and treasonous. What would Jesus do? Wear a Confederate flag T-shirt? Your view of History is rather simplistic.
Let's flesh it out.
Lawrence Keitt, speaking in the South Carolina secession convention, said, "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."
--From the Confederate Constitution:
Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 4: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."
Article IV, Section 3, Paragraph 3: "The Confederate States may acquire new territory . . . In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government."
--From the Georgia Constitution of 1861:"The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves." (This is the entire text of Article 2, Sec. VII, Paragraph 3.)
--From the Alabama Constitution of 1861: "No slave in this State shall be emancipated by any act done to take effect in this State, or any other country." (This is the entire text of Article IV, Section 1 (on slavery).)
Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, referring to the Confederate government: "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition." [Augusta, Georgia, Daily Constitutionalist, March 30, 1861.]
On the formation of black regiments in the Confederate army, by promising the troops their freedom: Howell Cobb, former general in Lee's army, and prominent pre-war Georgia politician: "If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong." [Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
A North Carolina newspaper editorial: "it is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." [North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865; cited in Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?"
Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator from Barnwell: "If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -- it is a question of political and social existence." [Steven Channing, Crisis of Fear, pp. 141-142.]
"The nullifiers it appears, endeavor to shelter themselves under a distinction between a delegation and a surrender of powers. But if the powers be attributes of sovereignty & nationality & the grant of them be perpetual, as is necessarily implied, where not otherwise expressed, sovereignty & nationality are effectually transferred by it, and the dispute about the name, is but a battle of words. The practical result is not indeed left to argument or inference. The words of the Constitution are explicit that the Constitution & laws of the U. S. shall be supreme over the Constitution and laws of the several States; supreme in their exposition and execution as well as in their authority. Without a supremacy in those respects it would be like a scabbard in the hands of a soldier without a sword in it.
The imagination itself is startled at the idea of twenty four independent expounders of a rule that cannot exist, but in a meaning and operation, the same for all."
- James Madison
"South Carolina...cannot get out of this Union until she conquers this government. The revenues must and will be collected at her ports, and any resistance on her part will lead to war. At the close of that war we can tell with certainty whether she is in or out of the Union. While this government endures there can be no disunion...If the overt act on the part of South Carolina takes place on or after the 4th of March, 1861, then the duty of executing the laws will devolve upon Mr. Lincoln. The laws of the United States must be executed-- the President has no discretionary power on the subject -- his duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Mr. Lincoln will perform that duty. Disunion by armed force is treason, and treason must and will be put down at all hazards. The Union is not, and cannot be dissolved until this government is overthrown by the traitors who have raised the disunion flag. Can they overthrow it? We think not."
Illinois State Journal, November 14, 1860
The cause of the war WAS slavery and secession IS outside the law.
Walt
Your view of History is rather simplistic......Polybius to maro Let's flesh it out. Lawrence Keitt, speaking in the South Carolina secession convention, said, "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. ........Whiskey Papa
As usual, Walt, you take on the persona of an 1850's and 1860's era politician and refight the political battles that the fire-eaters on both sides fought in Congress and in State Conventions.
I again maintain my position that the average soldier in the Civil War and in any war usually fights for other reasons.
World War One was a particularly senseles war. Historians can go back and write entire books on whether the main cause for this or that belligerent joining was Alsace-Lorraine which in turn was the result of the Franco-Prussian War which was in turn the fault of Napoleon III's arrogance or Bismarck's intrigues or whether it was the neutrality of Belgium or the German High Seas Fleet's threat to the Royal Navy or whether it was the inflexibilty of mobilization schedules and France's or Germany's refusal or inability to stop Western Front mobilization over an Eastern Front causus belli or etc., etc., etc.
The bottom line is that when Johnny went marching off to war "Over There", Johnny was paying scant attention to any of these issues.
Johnny was marching off to war simply because Uncle Sam said that his Country needed Johnny and wanted Johnny to fight.
So it was with Johnny Doughboy. So it was with German Fritz. So it was with British Tommy. So it was with Billy Yank and Johnny Reb.
In these wars, it was the politicians and fire-eaters who demonized their counterparts on the other side. For the most part, the young men that had to bleed and die on the field of battle respected their foe and gave each other due military honor and credit for fighting for what they believed was right.
