[cowboyway]

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit.-—Abe Lincoln

[rockrr]

Abraham Lincoln was referring to the God-given right of Man to rise up against tyranny. In order to do so there must, 1. exist a state of tyranny (which most assuredly did not exist in 1860), and 2. possess the wherewithal (which the south did not).

Having a "right to rebel" does not suppress or negate others from possessing an equal or superior right to defend against that rebellion.