Which raises the question - we just had a filibuster arguing that the current president cannot do drone strikes on American citizens.
How is Lincoln’s response vs Virginia any different? The state did not take up arms against the federal government, and Lincoln went to war against them anyways.
And that is related to the point Triple made up-thread (see i.e., my response at #297).
The Virginia ratification statement to the US Constitution says, in effect, Virginia reserves the right to secede in cases of "oppression" or "injury".
Virginia's Secession Declaration issued after Fort Sumter, and Lincoln's response, claims there has now been "oppression" justifying secession.
As I responded to Triple, I don't agree that was legitimate, and neither did many Virginians at the time -- especially non-slave-owning Western Virginians.
However, unlike Deep South secessions, Virginia's case can at least be argued.
What can't be argued is this: unlike every citizen of the Deep South, who could legitimately hope for a peaceful secession, and whose leaders told them they wanted at peaceful secession, citizens of Upper South states -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas -- knew when they voted that secession meant going to war against the United States of America.
Those states all voted to secede after the Confederacy started war at Fort Sumter, and formally declared war, on May 6, 1861.