[BroJoeK]

OneWingedShark: "the problem is that if a state cannot legally secede then the civil war was Treason because they were still states if the union."

The basic deal at war's end was Unconditional Surrender in exchange for no trials for treason.
So the only Civil War related treason trials were John Brown's gang in 1859 and John Wilkes Booth's bunch in 1865.

But the larger point here is: virtually every "debate" over Slave-Power secession and war against the United States is based on false premises and a-historical claims.
In fact, every pro-Confederate and some Unionists distort the actual history to support their positions.
So getting the facts right is usually job #1 on these threads.

Here are first and foremost facts to remember:

1. The Civil War itself was not caused by slavery, by declarations of secession or by forming the Confederate States of America.
   All of those events happened without war breaking out.

2. In his March 4, 1861 inaugural address, President Lincoln pleaded for peace, while stating his opposition to unilateral secession.
   At the same time, while the Union army was barely 16,000 strong (most scattered in small forts out west), the Confederacy authorized a 100,000 man army.
   As late as April 6 Lincoln tried to avoid war by announcing to South Carolina Governor Pickens his intention to resupply Federal troops in Fort Sumter.

3. Civil War came because Slave-Power secessionists first provoked (by seizing dozens of Federal properties), then started (at Fort Sumter), then formally declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861), then sent military support for confederate forces in Union states (i.e., Missouri).
   All of this happened before a single battle killed a single Confederate soldier, or any Union army invaded a single Confederate state.

4. The first actual battles in Virginia did not happen until after Virginia formally voted to join the Confederacy and its declared war on the United States.

5. All claims that the Confederacy didn't want to "take over" the United States are bogus because the Confederacy claimed as its own US states and territories (Missouri, Kentucky, Arizona) which did not, or could not vote to secede.

6. The Confederacy also eventually sent its forces into every Union state & territory it could reach, including Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona & New Mexico.

Bottom line: Civil War was started by the Confederacy, period.

[WhiskeyX]

Also recall how the Confederates refused to allow Lincoln to appear on voting ballots in many Souther states, and how Confederate sympathizers and some state officials then proceeded to make attempts to murder President-Elect Lincoln before he could arrvive in Washington, D.C. and take the oath of office at the Presidential inauguration.

[jospehm20]

That is true if you don’t count the union keeping forts in confederate states territory as an act of war.