The civil war: Slavery or State's rights?

I have heard a lot of people debating on the civil war, and some friends of mine specifically get very hot over this issue. I haven't done much research on the subject, but since the war being over "states rights" is tantamount to hypocrisy when being in the confederacy required you to be a slave state, and since the title officially of the confederacy was "the slaveholding confederate states of America", doesn't claiming that the war wasn't over slavery cast an image of bitterness over the loss?

I really hate using this kind of cop out response, but it kind of both. The government did interfere on the private turf, but when human rights were being violated despite the "All men are created equal" stuff, the south really lost all right to complain. You see this a lot in history, where people conveniently forget parts of their own laws to their advantage, or root through to search for an old law that nobody enforces / find a loop hole. And when the South decided to succeed and attack the North, that didn't help their case much.

Sadly enough, Lincoln's reconstruction plan would have helped the south much more than the one given by congress to Johnson. Dealing in what ifs aren't really my thing, but if booth hadn't shot Lincoln, there probably wouldn't be such a division between north and south in the future years.

On the note of you mentioning all men created equal, keep in mind most of the founding fathers despised slavery and only accepted it to keep the states consolidated.

What defines a man?

What defines unalienable human rights?

While it is true that these rights are outlined in the Declaration of Independence, what binds us to the Declaration? It is not a legal document, rather unlike the Magna Carta.

Do we share some universal assumptions on these issues, or does everyone have their own individual view of the problem? Is it possible to have a single universal set of assumptions, or are universal human rights a deducible fact from the laws of the universe?

Are we sure that the founding fathers knew EXACTLY what they were talking about if we can't answer these questions ourselves?

Knowing the answers to all of these questions should help arrive at the answer to whether or not claiming the Civil War was not about slavery did or did not cast a shadow of bitterness over the entire event (or rather, sequence of events).

Stick to the topic instead of raising more and more questions lol