Using the two quotes, explain the main cause of the Civil War and what the South was seceding and fighting to protect?

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The Civil War Was Fought Over Slavery
Unfortunately as historians we’re often faced with people who ignore basic facts and are ignorant to their history. Knowledge and education can give you the tools to fight these forces.

Gordon, an escaped slave from Louisiana, is photographed showing the effects of years of brutal, horrendous whippings he would receive as a slave (Harper’s Weekly, 1863).

The role of slavery in bringing on the Civil War has been hotly debated for decades. One important way of approaching the issue is to look at what contemporary observers had to say. In March 1861, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederates States of America, was quoted in the Savannah Republican:

“The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as
the ‘rock upon which the old Union would split.’ He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. “[Our] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”
-Savannah Republican, March 21, 1861

There were many differences of opinion between the North and the South in 19th-century America. Differences over slavery were the only ones they seemed unable to settle by peaceful means. Evidence from that time shows the secession of seven Deep South states was caused primarily by concerns over the future of slavery. When Mississippi seceded, it asserted that:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money [the estimated total market value of slaves], or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property.”