Nonsense. Regardless of Lincoln's position, the Southern acts of secession were illegal. War was the confederacy's decision and their responsibility.
How was this ‘consent’ to take place? Your WHOLE bitch is that the South seceded without permission. Who do they receive this permission?
All the parties affected by the decision. Madison wrote that a proper secession required the consent of the states. There is no reason to believe that the approval for a state to leave need be any more than what is required for a state to join - a simple majority in both houses of Congress.
Lincoln didn’t believe this in the first place.
Neither did Buchanan. But both were wrong on that. Had the Southern states worked with Congress to negotiate a settlement on all issues of disagreement then Buchanan certainly would have gone along.
Madison wrote:
On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist between the nine or more States ratifying the Constitution, and the remaining few who do not become parties to it? The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.
“Nonsense. Regardless of Lincoln's position, the Southern acts of secession were illegal. War was the confederacy's decision and their responsibility.”
Hogwash. South Carolina wanted a peaceful separation. It was Lincoln that broke promises and provoked the war.
If the Founders had wanted the approval of other states as a condition of secession, then they would have put it in the Constitution. They were not afraid to specify when consent was needed on other things, as you well know because I've posted the following to you before:
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other ...
And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports ...
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States ...
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate
What, no consent needed to secede? The Founders knew that they likely wouldn't get the ratification of the Constitution if they required such a condition. After states started seceding, some Republicans in Congress attempted to pass an amendment to the Constitution requiring such approval. They knew that the Constitution as written and amended didn't require such approval.