The social contract (read John Locke) was a two-way street. You enter into the contract; but, you can also dissolve the contract if the participants view the power of the government is not fulfilling its duties or is violating the contract by infringing upon the rights of the the populous.
Southern states were practicing good federalism when they opted to dissolve the contract and live the Union.
What the North and Abraham Lincoln did was pure and simple: They destoryed a civilization and the resultant centuries old plague of poverty and underdevelopment that exists to this day in certain areas of the South, in particular Appalachia.
The only mistake the South made was that they should have freed the slaves first and deported en masse. Lincoln had the same idea...too bad John Wilkes Booth killed him or he'd deported the slaves back to Central America and Africa. We'd have no racial problems in this country, because they would've been here.
But, keep living the fairy tale that you Northerners have no racial problems...I enjoy it.
Not true. Booth heard or heard of a speech in which Lincoln refered to the possibility of giving Black veterans and educated Blacks the vote. Booth decided at that point to go through with his assassination plans. Resettlement of freedmen had been abandoned some time before.