Dude...YOU said the Southern States fought a war for slavery....back it up or shut up....sheesh...our Constitution was designed for States rights and the BoR for citizens rights....whatever right the States had was taken away with the Civil War....you can compare slavery then...to gay rights now....only a few select individuals care about it...but it will be imposed on all of us...
If I posted every slavery comment made by Southern leaders as the cause for secession, I would be still posting 25 years from now. So, I'll limit myself to the opening text of the Declaration of Causes of Seceding States.
Georgia: "The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery ..."
Mississippi: "In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery ..."
South Carolia: "The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States ..."
And so on. Geez for slavery not being an issue, those seceding states sure dwell on it a lot in the "declarations of independence". They talk about it a heck of a lot more than they talk about tariffs. I can't belive we're even arguing about this obvious fact.