Wanniski must not know that many Northern newspapers – and, indeed, a large portion of the American population, North and South, in 1860 and 1861 – believed that using military force to prevent a state from seceding would destroy the Union in a philosophical sense because it would no longer be a voluntary compact.Allowing states to secede at will would destroy the Union in a literal, physical sense. By the time Lincoln took office the Old Union had been destroyed by the secessionists. The only question was whether an attempt would be made to restore some form of Union, or whether the present territory of the US would deteriorate into a Europe-like condition of constantly clashing countries.
(To be slightly too alliterative.)
What DiLorenzo neglects to mention that that opinion did a 180 degree shift once the south initiated hostilities at Sumter. After all, why advocate a peaceful separation if the confederacy was interested only in a military solution?