If you want to call the right to rebellion the more to the issue, go ahead.
I've never said the southern democrats didn't have the right to rebel or secede for the purposes of maintaining slavery, only that they knew they could not win that their arguments for slavery and secession in the public forum or on the floor of congress.
So they did not even try to.
Lincoln's brilliant political strategy was forcing the issue to a point where the Southern Democrats Cut their ties with the Government and ran home to create a new one. They were the original Cut and Run democrats, showing cowardise in the face of national opinion.
free dixie,sw