I appreciate your support for the South's right to proper secession—but to suggest (and I'm not saying that you made that suggestion) that the General Government's unsatiable desire to subvert the State governments was somehow a pure-hearted desire to "free the slaves" is not supported by the slightest shred of truth, until later on in the conflict when the Union determined it needed to change the focus of its propaganda to prevent foreign nations from recognizing the Confederacy, which would have resulted in opening numerous ports to the CSA's prizes won on the high seas.
(I don't mean to pick nits, but Brown's rebellion was, by all of the accounts I've seen, not much more than a homicidal rampage. I don't think anything good could possibly come out of any such events, as good as the intentions might have been.)
Regards,
~dt~
Homicidal rampage? Now....Brown's forces did commit atrocities in Kansas (though he was piker compared to lincoln and Davis on atrocities) but I've never seen any evidence that he was accused of same at Harpers Ferry.
Speaking of homicide, of course, as an advocate of individual rights, I think slaves had a perfect right to kill their owners to defend their liberty.
The fact that Lincoln was a tyrant and hypocrite doesn't excuse the CSA in the least. Let me also not that the Confederate Constitution did not give members the right to secede. Also, unlike the U.S. Constitution, it gave *national* protection to the right of individuals to own slaves. So much for the CSA's belief in "states rights." BTW, I believe local control trumps states rights.....thus blacks had the right to seize their plantations and run them as they saw fit.