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Davis was rightfully concerned with independance. He wanted the Confederacy to return to the days of freedom from invasion.

Considering the history of the situation, the Union representatives were dealing in the absurd.

I can see why he was angry.

The issue of Lincoln enforcing non-constitutional law had become the critical issue that produced the secession.

At the time of the establishment of the US Constitution, fortunately the resolution of this problem was left more or less open.

The concept of a Federal institution with coercive powers to enforce law went beyond the powers that the founding fathers were willing to delegate to the government.

The state representatives at the Constitutional Convention knew that without Federal authority to coerce the states, there could be no armed conflict.

Whatever the practical limitations of its enforcement, however, the idea of federal law, which emerged in a rudimentary form as a result of the philosophical discussion prompted by the discovery of America, and later codified in the Constitution, became supremely important. It began the process of thought that each state was not a moral universe unto itself, but morally bound in its behavior by basic principles on which civilized peoples might agree. The state, in other words, would come to be seen as not morally autonomous.

This became the philosophical and eventually moral foundation for the rationalization of politicians in the United States to conduct "just" warfare.

The idea of the "just" war became a moral issue, and not of Constitutional law. A war could begin if a state had violated the norms of moral law in its interaction with another state. This then justified one state or several states having grounds for waging a just war against another.

In essence, morality defined by one was sufficient justification for war against another, the Constitution notwithstanding.

This was the underpinning of the anger of the South then and now.

Any government has to be able to enforce its laws if they are in keeping with the Constitution. To look at Washington's conduct in his Presidency it certainly does look like the Founders did endow the federal government with real powers. That explains his actions during the Whiskey Rebellion. The Constitution was intended to restrict federal power but not to destroy it.

The idea of an absolutely morally autonomous state would mean a state that is beyond moral judgement. It's natural that the founders who feared absolute power at the national level would eventually take exception to state claims to be beyond obligations and limits. It would have been a mistake to prevent absolutist rule at the federal level and allow it to the states.

A lot of confederate types attack Northerners for self-righteous moralism and charge unionists with hypocrisy. If you look back at the writings of the period, you'll find a lot of self-righteous moralism and hypocrisy among secessionists as well. This gets lost in retrospect as many take the Confederates as purely passive victims, rather than as actors who were capable of their own emotionalism, self-aggrandizement, and oppressiveness.