If you read the Declarations of Causes of Seceding States, slavery is mentioned throughout as one of the main causes for seceding. But the South did not see the black man as his own person, and regarded him instead as "property". Was that wrong, depends on how you view history, because slavery has existed throughout, also, it would depend on if you were the slave or the slave owner.

Carolyn

From : Declarations of Causes of Seceding States
Civil War South Carolina

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.