"I'm so sick of the states rights vs. slavery arguments.
First: War is complex and there are usually many reasons for it, and the reasons change over the course of the war.
2nd: It is not EITHER slavery OR state's rights. In fact, they are mostly the same issue. Slavery was the number one issue of the day REGARDING state's rights. It is thus perfectly acceptable, if one is going to distill the reasons for the civil war down to one reason, for one to say either slavery or state's rights."
That's not entirely true - first to believe the North was in the right you'd have to believe they waged a war mainly to liberate the slaves - that is so far from the truth it's almost laughable. Lincoln only "freed" the slaves in the South, leaving the slaves in "non-rebelious" states unaffected by the proclaimation. Also, the Northerners mostly cared not a whit about the slaves. Abandoning slavery not for moral reasons, but economical. (http://www.slavenorth.com/)
It's a shame that there is still spinning of the Civil War taking place in educational institutions. Heck, even Nathan Bedford Forrest is still painted as the father of modern day white supremicists, when in fact he hired blacks and treated them equally right after the civil war. Betcha most don't know this quote from him:
"We are born on the same soil, breathe the same air, live on the same land, and why should we not be brothers and sisters?”
--Nathan Bedford Forrest, addressing the African-American community of Memphis, July, 1875
There are a lot of self-serving myths about the origins of Slavery in the US and about the elimination of the institution. We probably all can agree that slavery was a vile unnecessary institution, however, to lay the guilt of slavery solely at the feet of southerners is incorrect.
But as to the right or wrong of the war itself, I think the following sums it up:
'"If you bring these leaders to trial it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution secession is not rebellion."
-- Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court privately delivered this opinion on charging captured Confederate officers with treason.'
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired." -- Chief Justice Chase writing in the majority decision of Texas v White (74 US 700)