It wasn’t even that. The states that seceeded were not fighting for states’ rights, they were fighting against them.

The Fugitive Slaves Act was federal law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court had found that the law was unconstitutional and rejected the requirement to return slaves. Vermont passed the Freedom Act which freed any escaped slaves who reached the state. Kansas had voted to adopt a constitution that prohibited slavery, although it wasn’t admitted as a state until after the Senators from the South resigned.

In their articles of secession, South Carolina specifically cited the federal government’s lack of effort in upholding federal laws, along with Lincoln’s pledge not to force slavery onto new territories added to the Union, as the primary reasons for attempting to leave.

Lincoln was not threatening to abolish slavery, and did not do so until 2 years into the war.

Bigots like to reimagine the Civil War as the scrappy farm-country folks fighting against northern aggression for the right of self-determination, when in fact the opposite was true. It was slave-owning fat cats and oligarchs who wanted to force their will onto abolitionists by way of bigger government and federal legislative overreach.

It was 100 years later when “state’s rights” because a conservative rallying cry, when Southern states were being forced to desegregate during the Civil Rights era.

Don’t let those fuckers continue to rewrite history, casting their forebears as the victims.