[4CJ]

As for who was afraid of whom, it was the New England states during the war of 1812 that started talking about secession and it was the Southern states who stated that they had no right to do so.

Documentation please.

[fortheDeclaration]

Lee himself stated that fact in his letter to his son,

Many southerners had mixed feelings about leaving the Union, especially if a father or grandfather had fought in the Revolutionary War. Among these was Robert E. Lee, the son of the Patriot hero, Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee. Robert E. Lee was strongly pro Union, but his first loyalty was to his native Virginia. His ambivalent feelings were expressed in a letter he wrote to one of his sons in January 1861: “Secession is nothing but revolution... the framers would not have devoted so much care to the formation of the Constitution if it was intended to be broken by any member of the Confederacy at will... In 1808 when New England states resisted Mr. Jefferson’s embargo law, and when the Hartford Convention assembled, secession was termed treason by Virginian statesmen; what can it be now? (emphasis added) Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. If the Union is dissolved and the government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people. Save in her defense, I will draw my sword no more.”

http://www.clis.com/friends/UnionOrSeces.htm