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Primary sources.
This is why historians have rejected the Lost Cause. It cuts right through the oratory and ******** and lets you hear what the men of the time had to say.
Take the address of John Letcher to the Virginia General Assembly on Jan 7th, 1861.
"The only mode, therefore, of remedying the evil, that occurs to me, under the constitution, is provided in the fifth article thereof. Summon a convention of all the states, that a full and free conference may be had between the representatives of the people, elected for this purpose, and thus ascertain whether the questions in controversy cannot be settled upon some basis mutually satisfactory to both sections. If such a convention shall assemble, and after free and full consultation and comparison of opinions, they shall find that the differences between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding states are irreconcilable, let them consider the question of a peaceable separation, and the adjustment of all questions relating to the disposition of the common property between the two sections. If they can be reconciled, let them adjust the terms, and give them such sanctions as will render them effective."
Later in the same address:
"For the present condition of public affairs, the non-slaveholding states are chargeable; and if the Union shall be destroyed, upon them will rest the solemn responsibility. Their systematic and persistent warfare upon the institution of domestic slavery, as it exists amongst us--their fierce and unqualified denunciation of it, and all who recognize or tolerate it, have done much to create the present state of exasperation existing between the two sections of the Union. Hatred to slavery and slaveholders is instilled into the minds of their children, as part and parcel of their education, throughout the infected district of New England. The institution is constantly assailed--through the press, in the pulpit, in public meetings, in private associations, in their legislative assemblies, in their statutes, on all occasions--as morally, socially and politically wrong. The slave owner is painted as the great criminal of the age, deserving death. Money is raised and has been expended in hiring desperate and depraved men, in arming and supporting them, in order that they may make raids into southern states, and excite the slaves to insurrection and murder. Arms peculiarly suited to the use of the slave, have been fabricated, and sent into the slave states, to be placed in the hands of this class of our population, after they have been stimulated to such a degree of madness as will qualify them for the commission of murder, arson, and every species of cruelty. The results of these teachings were seen in the Harpers Ferry raid.