Abolishing slavery meant severely altering their way of life, so yes, the North was telling them they could not continue to live the way their Daddies did. States didn't own slaves. My Confederate-soldier ancestors didn't own slaves and neither did their Daddies. But, of course, when you have been conditioned with a slaveocentric bias, you can't see anything but that. The people who live here are different.
Society is different.
It is a dead era and should remain that way. The era of liberty and self-government is indeed a dead era, and the Southern Nationalist movement thinks its worth reviving, and believe me, we're not interested in a federalist Southern nation. We've already got that system, and it's exactly what Southern Nationalists want to be free of. It's interesting that you evidently believe that the drive for independence we see in countries all around the globe isn't appropriate for the people of the South. Liberty shouldn't mean anything to them.