There is an active movement to re-envision the Confederacy and the treason of the Southern States leading up to and through the United States' Civil War. This rewrite of history to cleanse the sins of the Confederate South takes several forms.
"It was about State's rights"
Under the Constitution of the Confederate States of America (C of CSA) the federal system was not weakened considerably. Three states' rights are expressly removed including the ability to freely trade among states and the ability to outlaw slavery. The four 'rights' that states gain are the ability to enter treaties to regulate waterways and also to tax ships that use waterways, the power to impeach federally-appointed state officials and the ability to distribute 'bills of credit'.
"It wasn't about slavery"
The C of CSA has numerous clauses that enhance the institution of slavery, notably the following:
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.— From Article IV Section 2, Clause 1, Constitution of the Confederate States of America (emphasis added)
No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; _but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs_, or to whom such service or labor may be due.— From Article IV Section 2, Clause 3, Constitution of the Confederate States of America
In all such territory _the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government_; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.— From Article IV Section 3, Clause 3, Constitution of the Confederate States of America
The most amusing fact, to me, is that although States are clearly not being empowered in any meaningful way vis-a-vis the Original Constitution United States of America, the Federal government is being empowered to enforce a Constitutional version of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. So regarding the idea of the secession being about State's rights is flat out false, in other words, the Confederate States who feared the Federal government of the USA was not doing enough to force the issue on States who balked or resisted the Act were for strengthening the power of the Federal government.
In regards to the issue of slavery being the reason for secession, perhaps it is best to let the states speak for themselves:
No person shall be a representative, unless he be a white man...— From Article III, LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT, Section 4
No slave in this State shall be emancipated by any act done to take effect in this State, or any other country— From Article VI, SLAVERY, Section 1
From the preamble:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
Some specific complaints and 'reference to a few facts':
It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.— A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
The Federal Government refuses to exert power over the States, cause State's Rights.— Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
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.— Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.— Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.— A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
For the root cause of Secession, the Federal Government not stepping in to act against the non-slave-holding states and their legislative actions:
The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact— A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
In the views of Texas the non-slave-holding states harbor:
...an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.— A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
Oh right, State's rights:
By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.— A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
Lest there be any doubt (emphasis IN ORIGINAL):
In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.— A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.— A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.— A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
An early part of the document is a brief history of rising anti-slavery sentiment in the North, and the effect it has had on the South. Leading to complaints about the weakness of the Federal government to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and similar laws.
For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us.— Confederate States of America - Georgia Secession
In conclusion, why is Georgia seceding?
... by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere...— Confederate States of America - Georgia Secession
A slave in one State escaping to another, shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom said slave may belong by the executive authority of the State in which such slave shall be found, and in case of any abduction or forcible rescue, full compensation, including the value of the slave and all costs and expenses, shall be made to the party, by the State in which such abduction or rescue shall take place.— Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3
...Negro slavery exists in the South, and by the existence of negro slavery, the white man is raised to the dignity of a freeman and an equal. Nowhere else will you find every white man superior to menial service. Nowhere else will you find every white man recognized so far as an equal as never to be excluded from any man's haouse or any man's table.— Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward
...With us, and with us alone, as I believe, the white man attains to his true dignity in the Government.— Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward
...we have sought that government should be instituted in order that every person and property might be protected that went into it--the white man coming from the North, and the white man coming from the South, both meeting on an equality in the Territory, and each with whatever property he may hold under the laws of his State and the Constitution of the United States.— Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward
The condition of slavery with us is, in a word, Mr. President, nothing but the form of civil government instituted for a class of people not fit to govern themselves.— Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward
...It is but a form of civil government for those who by their nature are not fit to govern themselves. We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority.— Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward
...any intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions of the others, on any pretext, whether political, moral, or religious, with the view to their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution...— Jefferson Davis' Resolutions on the Relations of States Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 2, 1860
Resolved, That negro slavery, as it exists in fifteen States of this Union, composes an important portion of their domestic institutions, inherited from their ancestors, and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as constituting an important element of the apportionment of powers among the States; and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of the non-slaveholding States of the Union in relation to this institution can justify them or their citizens in open and systematic attacks thereon, with a view to its overthrow; and that all such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledges to protect and defend each other, given by the States, respectively, on entering into the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and are a manifest breach of faith and a violation of the most solemn obligations.— Jefferson Davis' Resolutions on the Relations of States Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 2, 1860
Resolved, That the inhabitants of an organized Territory of the United States, when they rightfully form a constitution to be admitted as a State into the Union, may then, for the first time, like the people of a State when forming a new constitution, decide for themselves whether slavery, as a domestic institution, shall be maintained or prohibited within their jurisdiction; and if Congress shall admit them as a State, "they shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.— Jefferson Davis' Resolutions on the Relations of States Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 2, 1860
We may well leave it to the instincts of that common humanity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellow-men of all countries to pass judgment on a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere, are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation ‘to abstain from violence unless in necessary self-defense.'— Jefferson Davis' Message to the Third Session of the First Confederate Congress
it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.— Jefferson Davis' Farewell Address
The Confederacy of the Southern United States was founded, first and foremost, to defend the institution of slavery. It is plain from both the letters of secession as well as speeches from figure-heads of the Confederacy. The so-called Confederate Flag represents this defense of slavery. While the individual soldiers of the South may have had other reasons for fighting, perhaps even false reasons given to them by the elite of the Confederacy, they ultimately fought and lost for the cause of slavery.
The descendants of these soldiers and citizens of the Confederacy don't have to live in shame - they are not guilty of the sins of their forebears - but they do have to come to a reckoning that their history contains darkness and evil. As do all of us citizens of the United States. Our ideals are sometimes lofty and good and sometimes they have been base and evil. We don't carry the blame or fault of those who came before us. Yet we do have to confront the truth. No matter how uncomfortable it may make us.
The heritage borne by the flags of the South flown during the Confederacy is one of division by race and the subjugation of human beings based on the color of their skin. A legacy of white supremacy and the institution of slavery. It does not represent the totality of heritage of the Southern United States. It is but a small portion of a much more full and rich heritage. A portion we can stop honoring as soon as possible.