You can spin it any way you like, but it resulted in slaves being freed
and men dying for that cause.
http://www.livescience.com/13673-civil-war-anniversary-myths.html
The most widespread myth is also the most basic. Across America, 60
percent to 75 percent of high-school history teachers believe and teach
that the South seceded for state's rights, said Jim Loewen, author of
"Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got
Wrong" (Touchstone, 1996) and co-editor of "The Confederate and
Neo-Confederate Reader: The 'Great Truth' about the 'Lost Cause'"
(University Press of Mississippi, 2010).
"It's complete B.S.," Loewen told LiveScience. "And by B.S., I mean 'bad
scholarship.'"
In fact, Loewen said, the original documents of the Confederacy show quite
clearly that the war was based on one thing: slavery. For example, in its
declaration of secession, Mississippi explained, "Our position is
thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest
material interest of the world … a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce
and civilization." In its declaration of secession, South Carolina
actually comes out against the rights of states to make their own laws —
at least when those laws conflict with slaveholding. "In the State of New
York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her
tribunals," the document reads. The right of transit, Loewen said, was the
right of slaveholders to bring their slaves along with them on trips to
non-slaveholding states.