"Secession was required to preserve slavery. Why should non-slaveholders care? Because slavery was the will of God, and those who opposed the institution–the abolitionists–were by definition anti-God. More to the point, secession was necessary to preserve white supremacy, to avoid a race war, and to prevent racial amalgamation. For Southerners to remain in the Union, be they slave-owners or non-slave-owners, meant losing their property, their social standing, and the 'sacred purity of our daughters'. Tariffs appear nowhere in these sermons and speeches, and 'states' rights' are mentioned only in the context of the rights of states to decide whether some of their inhabitants can own other humans."