For my money original lyrics to Harry McCarthy's gem, "The Bonnie Blue Flag" illiustrate the Southern position quite well --
http://www.contemplator.com/america/bonnieblue.html

We are a band of brothers

And native to the soil,
Fighting for the property

We gained by honest toil;
And when our rights were threatened,

The cry rose near and far--
"Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag

That bears a single star!"

As long as the Union

Was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and like brothers

Both kind were we and just;
But now, when Northern treachery

Attempts our rights to mar,
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag

That bears a single star.

The main point made being made is the right to hold property as a Constitutional guarantee, and its subversion at the hands of Northern traitors. Every schoolboy understood that a citizen could not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Now those rights were threatened on a principle that some Northern spokesmen called "higher law".