[lentulusgracchus]

There were a total of 15 states where slavery was legal. Eleven of those states formed the Confederacy. Four of them chose to stay loyal to the Constitution.

Sixteen, counting the illegal rump state of "West Virginia".

Only one slave state chose to remain in the Union: Delaware.

The others were suppressed, crushed by military force and tyrannical decrees, and their governments deposed and imprisoned, by Lincoln. That ain't "choice".

[Ditto]

The others were suppressed, crushed by military force and tyrannical decrees, and their governments deposed and imprisoned, by Lincoln. That ain't "choice".

You mean attempted insurrections were foiled. The most important of those states, Kentucky, voted to stay neutral. Then the Confederates invaded them and drove the state firmly into the Union camp.

[Drennan Whyte]

The others were suppressed, crushed by military force and tyrannical decrees, and their governments deposed and imprisoned, by Lincoln. That ain't "choice".

I believe you are mistaken in that. Missouri voted against secession in February 1861 at a constitutional convention called by the state legislature to vote on the matter. Maryland voted against secession at a convention held on April 29, 1861. The Kentucky legislature refused to vote for secession and refused to provide troops for the army, maintaining a kind of neutrality until Confederate troops invaded in the summer of 1861. That caused the state legislature to come down on the side of the Union.