It was all about slavery! The "right" that the eleven states wanted to protect was the "right" to own and keep slaves.
Quoting from Lincoln's first inaugural address:
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."".
There is no doubt that Lincoln was much smarter, politically speaking, than the entire political leadership of the CSA. Maybe he suckered the CSA into firing the first shot of the Civil War, therefore taking and holding the high moral ground.
