[DoodleDawg]

Because the secession of the Confederate states was — at its root — an exercise of the principle of self-governance that Lincoln was describing.

No, secession as practiced by the Southern states was the act in insurrection that Lincoln spoke of. Lincoln always recognized the right of people to rebel but he never said that the success of their rebellion was guaranteed or that the government had no duty to oppose the rebellion.

[Alberta's Child]

One of the great ironies of the 20th century was a common trend I observed in most long-time American families I knew in the Northeast:

1. They all had ancestors who fought for the Union in the Civil War — ostensibly to free the slaves.

2. They all spent a lot of money and energy in the post-WW2 era fleeing to the suburbs — to get the hell away from the descendants of those slaves.