You seem to be saying that a state would have to prove that the federal government was violating the constitution in some way, or secession would not be justified. Who would be the judge of that? The Supreme Court? The idea of sovereignty meant that a state could withdraw from the federal compact when it pleased and for reasons that seemed fitting to that state. At the time of ratification, that was the understanding of many. They would have been horrified to think that one group of states could invade another group and force them not to secede.
I was responding to a poster who stated specifically that southern states seceded “especially” because of violations of the Constitution. I simply asked what those violations were.
He hasn’t answered, for the simple reason that there weren’t any. He cited actions taken after secession, which cannot be logically used to justify secession itself.
I agree that the idea that a state could secede was widespread, though you might be surprised by some of the editorials in southern states when New England was supposedly contemplating secession during the War of 1812.
IOW, it was a debated point throughout the prewar history.
I do object to the notion that everything would have been hunkydory in our history had Lincoln simply accepted secession.
Let’s see. Lincoln accepts the secession of the seven Deep South states. The initial CSA is too small to be a viable state in the long run.
Do you think there would have been ongoing attempts by the CSA to encourage loyal slave states to secede? Would such efforts by a foreign power be properly considered an act of war?
The straw that broke the camel’s back in the regional dispute was whether southerners would be allowed to go with their slaves into the territories. Does anybody think the independent CSA wouldn’t have claimed right to some of the territories? Would such rivalries lead to war?
The whole idea behind southern aggressiveness in defense of their institution was that slavery had to expand to survive. How does that square with it being penned into the 7 initial seceders or even the 11 that finally seceded?
Few if any of the seceding states, at least among the initial 7, made any attempt to claim they were seceding because of constitutional violations by the federal government. A decent respect for the opinions of mankind required they declare why they were seceding. Their declarations were almost entirely about protection of the institution of slavery, not resistance to tyranny. Though of course they defined any threat, no matter how distant or unlikely, to slavery as tyranny.
The slavocracy's first recourse was violent insurrection. In doing so they relinquished any claim to a moral high ground. Yes, a SCOTUS affirmation of their rights would have been infinitely better than no affirmation. Likewise they could have gone to Congress where redress of their concerns rightly belonged. Even if the outcome was a certainty they should have made the good-faith attempt. They didn't and their Lost Cause is relegated to the trashbin of history for it.