I believe it was Gale Norton who said the South fought the good fight for State’s Rights but picked a bad reason - Slavery - to do it for.
That’s a reasonable viewpoint. Clearly the Union was not formed by the State representatives to make themselves all submissives to a Great Central Government which had not previously existed except in the form of the British Crown.
But like she said...they picked a bad issue to make the argument.
And you, like me, were schooled with the “secession is illegal!” absurdity. If it was, what was the Revolution? An illegal secession of the Colonies from its rightful owner, the English psychopath?
Maybe Lincoln was serious about keeping the Union together to preserve the concept of popular sovereignty. But at what cost?
There is no excuse for the vicious war that killed 700,000 men just “four score and seven years...” after the founding of the country.
None at all. Could have been solved with some honest dealing and a bit of cash. A Trillion dollars equivalent would have been worth it to save the lives and preserve the Republic.
The US Constitution is silent on the subject of secession. Had an article been put in it making the US Constitution binding on the states with no right of returning to self governance at will, then the US Constitution would have had no signatures.
Secession is the orderly, negotiated dissolution of a compact. Rebellion is the organized opposition to authority or a conflict in which one faction tries to wrest control from another. What the Colonialists did in 1776 was unabashedly a rebellion. They openly challenged the authority of the king and crown. There was no pretense at “secession” and they knew that their very lives would be determined by the outcome.
The slavers rebelled in 1860 too, only they didn’t have the brass to be honest about their insurrection. Secession - as pretended by the slavers was illegal and is so today.