If you're going to claim that one is the LoTW&TL but the other is "one of the islands of freedom" (IoF, I guess), you should expect that the consistency of your standard of proof for those two independent claims will be challenged. *IF* the IoF has a poorer record than the LoTW&TL, then your moral scale needs to be recalibrated.
OK, there was no “tyranny” in 1860. Since that was the basis of secession it means it was based entirely upon a LIE. As I have repeatedly said.
There were two rounds of secession. The Deep South withdrew because they disliked the tone of the new management. The Upper South left in reaction to the Union response to the initial break.
So it would be acceptable/reasonable in your world for Communist operatives to agitate for secession and build a movement in Iowa or Nebraska to secede from the US, sign a treaty with the Red Chinese and allow missiles to be based there?
If foreign agents of influence are undermining the sovereignty of the state(s) through subversion (which isn't even a hypothetical, these days), then the seceding unit can hardly be said to be exercising it's sovereign will. But if Iowa or Nebraska left the Union as an original notion and then partnered with China for spite and giggles, we would find ourselves in the difficult position of having to explain how we could oppose their independence while supporting the liberation of Tibet or the independence of Taiwan.
BTW, do you agree that "The courts were working, representatives were seated, legislatures operated unfettered,..." is evidence of non-tyranny?
Of course, there was no tyranny. It is entirely a Cornpone Brigade myth.
There need be no “explanation” for actions so protective of the sovereignty of the US as to prevent a Red Chinese military presence within the Union. It is indivisible by its nature as this illustrates.
Taiwan and Tibet are different because it was the Revolting forces (like the secessionists) which took over China. Those places had no allegiance to them any more than an American would have had to the Secessionists had they been successful.