Oddly, he would also be correct in that. When histories associate Forrest with the Klan in order to tarnish or trash him, they neglect to mention that the KKK with which he was associated was not the terrorist organization which made headlines through the 20th C.
Unfortunately, to some people it was/is.
However, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. As you know, states rights is an approach set up in the Bill of Rights to limit the power of the central government.
When the central government tries to impose its laws on states and individuals in areas that are the purview of the states, then states rights can be used to stop it. Consider federal laws on the possession of guns near schools. It is not a federal issue, so the courts threw it out. "Under the theories that the Government presents...we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate."
On the other hand, if you want an all powerful central government, then states rights is an obstacle that has to be overcome and demonized.
I believe it is you who needs to go back and study up on what the Founders' actually intended in regards to "self-determination". But for your further edification: "It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act." --James Madison, Federalist No. 39
"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore...never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market." --Thomas Jefferson
"The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation." --Alexander Hamilton
If the "People" of the South believed that the Federal Government was overstepping its Constitutional bounds in their internal (i.e. State) affairs and had done so for decades, then they had every right to form their own form of Government.
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28
The War was about what every war is normally about - economics and power! You definitely need to dig deeper than just buying the Yankee teachings.
For your further edification:
"We emphasize economics and politics as major factors leading to war. The Republicans who came to power in 1860 supported a mercantilist economic agenda of protectionism, inflation, public works, and big government. High tariffs would have been a boon to manufacturing and mining in the north, but would have been paid largely by those in the export-oriented agriculture economy."
"Southern economic interests understood the effects of these policies and decided to leave the union. The war was clearly related to slavery, but mainly in the sense that Republican tariffs would have squeezed the profitability out of the slave-based cotton plantation economy to the benefit of Northern industry (especially Yankee textiles and iron manufacturing). Southerners would also have lost out in terms of public works projects, government land giveaways, and inflation."
"The real truth about wars is that they are not started over principle, but over power. Wars however, are not won by power on the battlefield, but by the workings and incentives of men who go to work in fields and factories, to those who transport, store and sell consumer goods, and most especially to the entrepreneurs and middlemen who make markets work and adapt to change. This emphasis and this economic account of tariffs, blockade and inflation, like the focus of Degas’s "Cotton Exchange" reveals the most important and least understood aspect of war." - The Economics of the Civil War
Ma'am, I believe it is you who is wrong!
I am a Southerner and a realist. While many elite Southerners were certainly fighting for slavery, I do believe that most others were not, in fact the Confederate Constitution called for the abolishment of slavery. It was dying and would have died even if they had won the war. In fact if the North had not taken to arms right away they could have easily made a few minor concessions, reunite the nation, and avoid war. It would probably have taken more time, perhaps decades, but I think if they had used sanctions and limited blockades to accomplish this they could have ended slavery without blood shed.
Many of the common folks were simply fighting because the Yankees were invading their territory. My mothers family came from Georgia and Alabama, during the civil war many, not most of the men served in the Confederacy. My fathers side was from southern Alabama (sometimes called LA) and the panhandle of Florida. Not many served, one brother helped build ships in Mobile,and another served in the Army and suffered a wound. But Southern Alabama had almost no invasions except for some navel battles outside Mobile.
All in all the support for the Confederacy was lackluster. I would say most of my ancestors had Rett Butlers attitude toward the Confederacy.
That said some of those elite Southerners were mighty powerful and too eager to enter war. So the end result may have been the same.
Okay. So the first amendment is *really* code for the right to be offensive. To say insulting and unpopular things. To only use your free speech in the most hurtful and destructive way possible, not to ever say anything truthful and edifying. Good logic.< /sarcasm>
You see the trouble starts when you start presuming to know the heart motivation of someone. Slavery was sinful, but it was economically doomed anyway. The South knew this, but they wanted to retain the right to determine the issue (and any other issue not constitutionally mandated to Washington) for themselves.
But the tenth amendment protected much more than slavery from the purview of the central government.Amendment X was a huge barrier to the Federalists among us, and they apparently had no problem with hundreds of thousands of slaughters to get rid of it. It was a power play against the states, more than anything else.