So, without conveniently relying on the argument of slavery (which isn't all that important when you think about it in modern terms concerning almost equivalent capitalism and its social ills), and casting this aside, who was actually right about this conflict overall? In other words, I propose to you a challenge: you must argue who was right about their cause without using the easy excuse of slavery. Slavery was already guaranteed by the laws and Lincoln himself spared slaver border states who sided with him.. it is fair to say there were other issues at stake.