“Well written...and well-taken....”
Especially the article’s most important sentence:
“What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.”
Secession is certainly legitimate when “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [a country’s inhabitants] under absolute Despotism”. Indeed, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government”.
The petitions will accomplish nothing, and any direct action would be suicidally catastrophic. The Feds would sooner level a rebellious town in Texas than it would Fallujah. Historians would celebrate the President who ordered it for centuries and cinematographers would produce hagiographical movies about his greatness.
“What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.”
Seems to me that the Federal Government is not so mighty without the backing or at least the acquiescence of the States. Lincoln couldn’t have done much without the Northern States.