You start with a completely inaccurate assertion. The Founding fathers, Andrew Jackson, even Stephen Douglas, all regarded secession as treason. Secessionists, then as now, were regarded as lunatic fringe. That is why the secession crisis of 1860-61 caught most by surprise.
“When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” – Thomas Jefferson
The core of the Democrat Party saw every action of the Bush administration as nothing more than treasonous corruption. The core of the Republican Party sees the Obama administration in the same light.
Take specifically abortion. To those on the right it is the clearest case of murder, understood by all as the killing of an innocent. To the left abortion is the ultimate affirmation of freedom and liberty.
As in the above examples, and in an unending list of others, there are issues on which the citizens of these United States will never agree. This should not come as a surprise to anyone. It was certainly not a surprise to the Founders. That is why they constructed a Republic based on a government of limited powers. The key to which was a distribution of powers weighted inversely to the breadth of their jurisdiction.
The key to a stable country is "the consent of the governed." Such consent is only attainable when there is agreement on what the government is trying to do. And the ability of human beings to reach consensus is inversely proportional to the size of the group.
Abraham Lincoln and his radical Republican brethren killed this basic principle in America. And the dysfunction in the nation has grown in proportion to the growth of Federal power ever since.
We are again in crisis as a nation. The very fact that secession is under discussion is proof of this.
Does any reasonable person believe this to be a nation operating under a system of limited government? Does anyone really think that it is the function of the Congress, the President or the Supreme Court to restrict the powers of the Federal Government? They ARE the Federal government!
The Constitution can only function to bind a nation of sovereign States. The independence of the States is the fulcrum of the balance the powers in our system.
Right now the Federal Government rules without constraint. That this is unstable is becoming more and more clear. The end state of the path we are on is not pretty. But perhaps the citizens will recover their will and return the country to its roots. Let's hope so.
You like dealing in superlatives, don't you? My assertion is completely inaccurate, and all of the founding fathers regarded secession as treason. Huh.
Were you aware that New England, in particular, was home to secessionist movements from time to time? As I said in my essay, no movement really gained traction until 1860.
And all of the Founders thought secession was treason? Are these the same founders who worked so hard to build a central government that would be unable to tyrannize the states? Are these the same founders whose state constitutional ratification conventions (some of them, anyway, such as Virginia) explicitly reserved the right to withdraw ratification if they so chose? How many of the original colonies do you think would have ratified if they understood they were making an irreversible decision?