I have always stated that I consider the south method of secession to be unsound and stupid but I have also said they had a right to secede, they just did it wrong.
What would have been the "sound and smart" method?
The way James Madison believed:
"It is the nature & essence of a compact that it is equally obligatory on the parties to it, and of course that no one of them can be liberated therefrom without the consent of the others, or such a violation or abuse of it by the others, as will amount to a dissolution of the compact...no State can at pleasure release itself therefrom, and set up for itself. The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect. It will hardly be contended that there is anything in the terms or nature of the compact, authorizing a party to dissolve it at pleasure. It is indeed inseparable from the nature of a compact, that there is as much right on one side to expound it & to insist on its fulfilment according to that exposition, as there is on the other so to expound it as to furnish a release from it, and that an attempt to annul it by one of the parties, may present to the other, an option of acquiescing in the annulment, or of preventing it as the one or the other course may be deemed the lesser evil."
A sound and smart method, that’s easy use the halls of congress to air your grievances and sue for secession the same way we allow states to be admitted only in reverse.
Start with a bill calling for the secession of a state and have a debate on why that state should be allowed to secede, the whole notion of secession being a unilateral and individual state right is wrong.
The government allows states to join the union and the government has the right to allow states to secede, the individual states don’t get to decide weather or not they can be part of the United States. Say tomorrow Cuba decided it was part of the United States of America, and that Fidel Castro was it’s governor, and he appointed senators and representatives to be part of our congress, how long do you suppose that sort of charade would be allowed to happen?
It’s the same with secession, once joined to the Union it takes the votes of the union to allow secession just as it does with admission....