As a follow-up to Adam's post below, here's a useful roundup of quotes from Confederate Declarations of Secession -- unlike their latter-day apologists, they made no pretense that secession wasn't about slavery. And as Katrina vanden Heuvel notes, the "states' rights" excuse becomes even more feeble when you remember that Southern political elites were perfectly happy with broad constructions of federal authority when they supported the slave interest. (John Calhoun started his career as a strong nationalist.) The placement of the fugitive slave clause in Article IV of the Constitution implies that the relevant powers were a state responsibility, but when Congress and the Supreme Court construed the clause as giving the federal government the power to regulate fugitive slaves, oddly people who would eventually become advocates of "states' rights" didn't object.
None of this is surprising -- for all intents and purposes nobody really cares about "federalism." One's belief in the legitimate powers of the federal government are almost always directly related to whether one thinks federal power or a given issue is desirable. The Civil War was certainly no exception, and for Viriginia's governor to celebrate treason in defense of slavery without even mentioning said slavery is a disgrace.
--Scott Lemieux
