10/04/2024
The Civil War was not about States' rights. The South Carolina Declaration of Secession (1860) says it all, "[A]n increasing HOSTILITY on the part of the non-slaveholding States TO THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution..."
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/south-carolina-declaration-of-secession-1860 .
National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for South Carolina Declaration of Secession (1860)