The civil war was about slavery, slavery and slavery and about absolutely nothing else. Everything else you hear now are after-the-fact rationalizations made up to try and pretend it wasn't about slavery.
But every single contemporaneous document or other piece of evidence that exist bar none cite only ONE reason for the South to seccede: slavery.
It was NOT about "states rights" -  in fact the EXACT opposite: a key motivation was anger at states like New York and Maine for refusing to enforce Southern slave-return laws ! 
If it was about 'protecting a lifestyle' then that is only true in the sense that this lifestyle was being funded by slavery and they feared trying to maintain it without that.

Hell the constitution of the confederate states of America states in it's opening paragraph that NO state may join unless they sign a promise to never, ever abolish slavery. In the opening paragraph. 

And yes, Washington should be condemned for HIS slaves too.