[Non-Sequitur]

I take it that you construe the South's primary "obligation" to have been to remain in the Union as a good little meat-puppet for the Yankee merchant interest to gnaw on? To be dominated and smothered by the North? Yes, I thought so.

And you construe the south's obligation to be to take what they want and walk away from what they want, Constitution be damned.

[lentulusgracchus]

And you construe the south's obligation to be to take what they want and walk away from what they want, Constitution be damned.

"Take what they want" sounds like you're still pushing the bank-robbery imagery. Which I carefully explained it wasn't, since the South left so much more on the table.

As for access to the sea, the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal certainly provided that -- the latter paid for by everyone.

And no, I don't think the Southerners thought, "Constitution be damned" -- more like "Black Republicans be damned". They weren't going to stay where those people could hurt them -- and very sensibly so.