In a war for Indpendence, like that of 1775-1783, one does not need to resort to sophistic legal arguments. If the acts of the southern insurrectionists were revolutionary, you need no pretense that they were also legal.
"In a war for Indpendence, like that of 1775-1783, one does not need to resort to sophistic legal arguments. If the acts of the southern insurrectionists were revolutionary, you need no pretense that they were also legal."
Then why was the Declaration of 1776 so long and so carefully written. Your argument is very but very weak.
Indeed, one must wonder why so many southern leaders referred to the "revolution" of 1860.
They plainly thought what they were doing was a revolution - albeit a conservative one.
Had they won, they would have earned the right to call it a revolution, I suppose. Instead, history calls them rebels.