The men on both sides of this conflict were the same. The most noble and genuine people who ever inhabited the earth. The Judeo_Christian culture that proved its bona-fides for the next hundred and fifty years.
Slavery was the abomination of the time. But neither North nor South saw it as a humane issue, they saw it as an economic issue. They considered themselves humane operators of the insitution, right or wrong that they were.
Your sniveling about hypothesizing is disingenuous. You have inferred often about the T-shirt propoganda and your inference is that MY ancestors were traitors. Well, my friend. You could also be called a traitor. If you'll read (you can read can't you, well of course you can you obviously can type but that doesn't mean you can think) the Declaration of Independence it states that a government that becomes oppressive should be overthrown.
What did the South do? They didn't even overthrow. They opted out. And you and your ignorant brethren have taken one issue, slavery, and made it the reason for a four year war of vast and universal consequences. No conflict so long and vast and tragic as that could be about one issue of political decision. It is like saying that WWII was about Japanese planes.
I'll bite. The Declaration of Independence, is that the document whose most repeated line goes something like "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," Is slavery an institution that facilitates Life, Liberty and Happiness?
I've read it a dozen times. An Oppressive government is not enough, it clearly states that the government to be overthrown must be an "absolute Despotism" or "absolute Tyranny". This is a much higher test than oppression imo. The Declaration goes on to list 25 to 30 specific greviences against king George III that are the facts as to why the current colonial governing situation must be eradicated.
I'll wager that you cannot find a mere 3 of these greivances to be applicable to the South's situation before the war. Two would even surprise me.
The South's biggest mistake was not overthrowing the government as you suggest. If congress/president was so oppressing the Confederate States, why in the heck didn't they march straight to Washington after kicking arse at Manassas to open the war?