[FLT-bird]

All of the articles of secession mention slavery as a reason for seceding. Only 4 of the original 7 seceding states issued declarations of causes. Of those Mississippi was the only one which mentioned exclusively slavery. Georgia and Texas went on at length about the economic exploitation of the Southern states by the federal government acting at the behest of Northern business interests and Texas went on at length about the federal government's malicious failure to provide border security as was required by the accession treaty. South Carolina attached the Address of Robert Barnwell Rhett to its declarations of causes. That address went on at great length about the South's economic exploitation by the Northern states and explained how the Southern states would be far better off economically if they were independent.

No matter how much Southerners hated the tariffs and no matter how unequal federal expenditures for infrastructure and corporate subsidies were, they were not unconstitutional. What was unconstitutional however was the North's refusal to enforce the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US constitution. On that point the Southern states could legitimately say the Northern states had violated the compact. So they seized it. When offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment and massively strengthened fugitive slave laws, they refused. Obviously the protection of slavery was not their real concern.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

Here they are. All of them mention slavery, although they surround it with arguments about "states rights" and the Constitution.

The readers can decide for themselves.