States' Rights, My Ass
Did you know that the War of Northern Aggression (I picture an invading horde of angry Swedes but that's just me) was a nefarious attempt by the Federals to snuff out the rights of the States? Nothing whatsoever to do with slavery; that must just be Yankee propaganda. Did you know that Jim Crow laws and the KKK are just urban legends? You knew all that? Congratulations, you could pass high school History in Texas!
From the Civil War on the US has fought wars for ever-diminishing moral returns. In my opinion, the X-axis was crossed at the 38th Parallel. But what is truly disheartening is how we have let the neoconfederate troglodytes take back the gains that so many died for between 1861-65. If you travel around the country and look at the monuments as well as the societal strata, you could be excused for concluding that the Confederacy won.
Meanwhile, in Texas:
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.
That is right from the Texas State Archives..
States' rights, my ass.