First the right of secession had been commonly understood since the ratification of the Constitution.
Second the Confederacy had warned Lincoln not to resupply Fort Sumter. Any nation would consider the occupation of a foreign fort on their territory especially one located in a vital sea port to be an act of aggression.
If you believe as did most statesmen of the US up until at least the 1830s that the member states of the union were sovereign states and that those states had the right to secede from the union.
If the Confederate States had the right to secede then you must conclude that the Confederate States were a sovereign nation after having voted to secede.
If the Confederate States were a sovereign nation then the attack on Fort Sumter was a defensive act.
Even post-Civil War I still contend that any state can vote to secede from the United States. There is no provision in the Constitution stating otherwise.
One can argue that the founders believed there was a right to leave the Union. Madison himself said on several occasions that leaving the Union required the consent of the remaining states. Contrast that with the way the South chose to leave; without negotiation, repudiating responsibility for national obligations like treaties and the debt, and taking every bit of federal property they could get their hands on without compensation. In short, the South chose to leave in a manner guaranteed to provoke acrimony. Surely you can't believe that the Founding Fathers would have sanctioned that?
Second the Confederacy had warned Lincoln not to resupply Fort Sumter. Any nation would consider the occupation of a foreign fort on their territory especially one located in a vital sea port to be an act of aggression.
Except that the fort did not belong to them and the garrison had taken not a single hostile act against Charleston or the rebel forces. On the contrary, the rebel batteries had fired at everything in sight and were actively trying to starve the fort into surrender. So who where the aggressors in this picture? Certainly not Lincoln.
If you believe as did most statesmen of the US up until at least the 1830s that the member states of the union were sovereign states and that those states had the right to secede from the union.
I would disagree with the "most statesmen" and state again that there was no right to secede in the manner the South chose to pursue.
If the Confederate States were a sovereign nation then the attack on Fort Sumter was a defensive act.
Complete nonsense.
Even post-Civil War I still contend that any state can vote to secede from the United States. There is no provision in the Constitution stating otherwise.
Would you agree then that the states also have the right to expel a state from the Union against its will? There is nothing in the Constitution that states that they can't either.
If I am to hold to a strict adherence of the words and meanings of the constitution I would have to admit that, for better or worse, the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions. Do you agree?
A landmark decision was rendered by SCOTUS in 1869 with Texas v. White. let me quote from the Texas v. White decision:
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States...Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union."
But of course that decision wasn't posted until after the civil war ended. And if you were to say that the constitution is quiet on the topic of secession I would be the first to agree. But its absences doesn't necessarily mean an omission and definitely doesn't indicate an excuse. So we need to seek guidance from those who constructed the document that guides our union.
You claim "First the right of secession had been commonly understood since the ratification of the Constitution but every attempt at secession, north or south, has been quashed by the balance of the states. Sure you can find lofty oratory from the founders on the right of rebellion but only offered in the oratorical or theoretic sense. As a practical matter they all signed onto a perpetual agreement.
Second the Confederacy had warned Lincoln not to resupply Fort Sumter. Any nation would consider the occupation of a foreign fort on their territory especially one located in a vital sea port to be an act of aggression.
But it wasn't a foreign port and the confederacy never achieved the status of a sovereign nation. No other nation on Earth recognized them as anything other than rebel upstarts. Thus, the only "occupying" was done by rebel insurrectionists as an illegal action against the federal government.
If you believe as did most statesmen of the US up until at least the 1830s that the member states of the union were sovereign states and that those states had the right to secede from the union.
We are a system of sovereign states - we just happen to be members of a republic built around the concept of Dual Sovereignty. That concept defines who contains what powers and the power to control admission and expulsion of states is left to Congress - not the individual states. Congress, being the collective representative of the individual states holds the exclusive power to say who comes, who stays, and who goes. This fact invalidates your next three sentences. It is my understanding that states do have the option to secede from the union - just not unilaterally.
The attack on Sumter was simply a stupid act of ego. There was nothing to be gained, other than a poke in the eye, and we have seen exactly what could - and was lost.