LOL. Among other reasons, the Southern states left because they were not treated equally. Remember my post 163 above from a January 10, 1861, speech by Jefferson Davis?
Is there a Senator on the other side who to-day will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the Territories of the United States? Is there one who will deny that we have equally paid in their purchases, and equally bled in their acquisition in war? Then, is this the observance of your compact? Whose fault is it if the Union be dissolved? Do you say there is one of you who controverts either of these positions? Then I ask you, do you give us justice; do we enjoy equality? If we are not equals, this is not the Union to which we were pledged; this is not the Constitution you have sworn to maintain, nor this the Government we are bound to support.
... and the constitution is a club for some states to smack other states around with.
Yeah, well, I guess it was too much for the South to have expected the North to obey the Constitution with respect to returning fugitive slaves. If holding Northern states to what they agreed to in the Constitution was "smacking" them around with it, so be it.
Suppose for a moment the South didn't offer to pay for property stolen and debt repudiated.
Two can play the game of posing something that didn't happen that way. Now for the suppose question to you ... Suppose for a moment that Lincoln didn't violate the Constitution ... Would the North have had freedom of speech during the war?
Nor did they create a scenario where some states could pillage the others and create a situation guaranteed to lead to bad feelings.
Not intentionally.
A separation requires that all areas of possible disagreement be settled ahead of time and that the interests of both sides are protected.
Where is that requirement written? Not in the Constitution.
And denied protections to those remaining.
Protections for those that had long denied equal protection to the states that left?
Correction. They took those without even trying to negotiate.
Some kept a strict account of what they took and gave receipts, facilitating future negotiated compensation should that take place. For example:
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF TEXAS,
San Antonio, February 28, 1861.
Commanding officers of posts and others will, when the troops take up the line of march for the coast, turn over the public property in their charge (reserving such especially enumerated in General Orders, No. 5, of February 18, 1861, from these, headquarters) to the authorized agents of the State of Texas, who will be duly commissioned by the commissioners on the part of the State to give due and proper receipts for the same.
By order of Col. C. A. Waite:
W. A. NICHOLS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
To not take the forts would have left the South occupied by a fortified foreign army.
Ah, so then it was all about slavery! That's what Davis is complaining about, isn't it? Expanding slavery into the territories and how those evil Republicans wanted to limit it?
Yeah, well, I guess it was too much for the South to have expected the North to obey the Constitution with respect to returning fugitive slaves.
The Fugitive Slave Laws were federal laws, and the federal government was responsible for enforcing them. And it did so, to the best of its ability with powers granted by Congress that made a mockery of states rights. For the Northern states, at least. And every time a Northern state passed a law that might have interfered with the apprehension of runaway slaves, the Supreme Court struck it down. The South had absolutely no reason to complain when it came to the issue of fugitive slave laws and their enforcement.
Two can play the game of posing something that didn't happen that way. Now for the suppose question to you ... Suppose for a moment that Lincoln didn't violate the Constitution ... Would the North have had freedom of speech during the war?
We can come back to that directly, but first answer my question. Hypothetically speaking, since you insist that the south was willing to pay, had the South not paid for federal property stolen and debt repudiated then would that have made their secession illegal?
Not intentionally.
How can it not be intentional? The Southern states announced they were leaving without discussion. They repudiated their responsibilities. They stole every piece of federal property they could get their hands on. Where in that was anything designed to make the separation anything but acrimonious?
Where is that requirement written? Not in the Constitution.
Common sense. Madison noted that, "A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it." And before you jump all over that 'abuse of contract' clause, Madison said later in the same letter, "The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains."
So Madison ridicules the idea of unilateral secession in this letter, and in others.
...to give due and proper receipts for the same.
But not money. Acknowledge what you stole, just don't pay for it.
To not take the forts would have left the South occupied by a fortified foreign army.
Obviously a foreign power they had nothing but hostile intents towards. Otherwise what would they have to fear while negotiating a peaceful and compensated transfer of ownership?
Is there a Senator on the other side who to-day will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the Territories of the United States? Is there one who will deny that we have equally paid in their purchases, and equally bled in their acquisition in war? Then, is this the observance of your compact? Whose fault is it if the Union be dissolved? Do you say there is one of you who controverts either of these positions? Then I ask you, do you give us justice; do we enjoy equality? If we are not equals, this is not the Union to which we were pledged; this is not the Constitution you have sworn to maintain, nor this the Government we are bound to support.
He had no complaint. Everybody was treated equally with respect to the territories. Yankees couldn't bring their slaves into the territories either.