[central_va]

Instead of this the seceding States cried lustily,-"Let us alone; you have no constitutional power to interfere with us." Newspapers and people at the North reiterated the cry. Individuals might ignore the constitution; but the Nation itself must not only obey it, but must enforce the strictest construction of that instrument; the construction put upon it by the Southerners themselves. The fact is the constitution did not apply to any such contingency as the one existing from 1861 to 1865. Its framers never dreamed of such a contingency occurring. If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.

-- US Grant

[henkster]

But they didn’t.

As another poster has pointed out, if you believe a great injustice was done, the Constitution contains provisions for its alteration and you are free to avail yourself of them.

[HandyDandy]

Its framers never dreamed of such a contingency occurring. If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers. U.S. Grant.

And I think you have heard that one of the framers, a certain Thomas Jefferson, forecast and anticipated slavery, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." (To paraphrase Alexander Stephens in his Cornerstone Speech.)