The South seceded before Lincoln became President (at least the deep South did).
So what Lincoln did afterward was not the cause of their leaving.
And the point is? You were the one who talked about the Bill of Rights protecting individual rights from state governments. I pointed out that historically this didn't apply before or during the war, the period we've been talking about. Hello? Is anyone there?
The war was fought in order to preserve the government that would defend individual liberty.
It was the South which had rejected individual rights for collective ones in the states rights philosophy.
How does that justify secession? I presume you are talking about the 10th Amendment here. As I said, Jefferson Davis used it as a backing for the states having the power under the Constitution power to secede if they wanted to for whatever reason. From the Congressional Globe, January 10, 1861, Senator Davis speaking: ...the tenth amendment of the Constitution declared that all which had not been delegated was reserved to the States or to the people. Now, I ask where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a state; where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States? How was it ever taken out of that source of all power to the Federal Government? It was not delegated to the Federal Government; it was not prohibited to the States; it necessarily remains, then, among the reserved powers of the States.
To imply that the 10th amendment gave the right of secession is just nonsense.
The powers left to the states were just that, powers that the state had control of, not subject to Federal control.
It could not be construed that it gave a state the power to break the union for whatever reason they felt like, as if it was an escape clause to the Constitution.
Not the cause of the deep South leaving, no. But Lincoln did cause several other states to leave by raising by raising an army to coerce the seceded states. As Alexander Hamilton said during the ratification debates for the Constitution:
It has been well observed, that to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single State. This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts or any large State should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would not they have influence to procure assistance, especially from those States which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this present to our view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself! Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a Government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -- a Government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a Government.
Works for me.
The war was fought in order to preserve the government that would defend individual liberty. It was the South which had rejected individual rights for collective ones in the states rights philosophy.
The Constitution is the legal foundation of individual rights, and it was being violated by Northern states, not Southern ones. The Constitution was ratified on a state by state basis by the sovereign voice of the state, i.e., the voters of that state. Several Southern states held referendums where voters expressed the sovereign will of the state about whether to secede or not. That was generally more than was done to accept the Constitution in the first place.
To imply that the 10th amendment gave the right of secession is just nonsense.
That's your opinion. Probably you accept Lincoln's argument that the Union preceded the states too. My sympathies to you and your relatives, if that is the case.