[Michael.SF.]

Republican government presupposes a degree of political maturity and restraint which the Confederates lacked

Yup, dem Southern boys just aint ready fur such a sofisticated a thing as that there constatoosion is thay?

[rockrr]

I would note that this is your characterization. Is that really your perception of southerners?

[Colonel Kangaroo]

I think southern people would do well not to identify so closely with the selfish and shortsighted political class who fanned the flames and led Dixie to rebellion.

The Declaration states:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed"

The rebs not only tore up a long established government, they attempted to tear apart one nation. All upon the pretext of an election result they didn't like. If dismemberment was the potential outcome of every election, chaos, fragmentation and anarchy would have been the result until the day Europe returned to the continent to restore order.