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“Yet, since the advent of the Lincoln administration we have been getting ever increasing doses of it. Lincoln was, in one sense, the “great emancipator” in that he freed the federal government from any chains the constitution had previously bound it with, so it could now roam about unfettered “seeking to devous whoseover it could.” And where the Founders sought to give us “free and independent states” is anyone naive enough anymore as to think the states are still free and independent? Those who honestly still think that are prime candidates for belief in the Easter Bunny, for he is every bit as real as is the “freedom” our states experience at this point in history. Our federal government today is even worse than what our forefathers went to war against Britain to prevent.”

The Constitution was silent on secession, yet our secession from Britain was based on that right. Some will opine that secession is limited to when events create an oppressive or intolerable situation. The South was fighting for states rights, however, if you read the ordinances of secession, they cite the primary and proximate cause of the dispute that was going on in the USA. That dispute was over slavery. Many Southern leaders wanted to phase out slavery, and Virginia has almost voted to do so, but there were too many Southerners in denial about the pernicious nature of the institution.

Legally, I agree with this article. Furthermore, I agree that after the Civil War, with the passage of the 14th Amendment and rise in the power of the Federal Government, that States Rights and the 10th Amendment became almost null. However, Southerners have a huge share of responsibility for this loss of States Rights by failing to do away with Slavery. Had the War not taken place, God knows when Slavery would have ended, perhaps into the 20th Century.

However, Southerners have a huge share of responsibility for this loss of States Rights by failing to do away with Slavery. Had the War not taken place, God knows when Slavery would have ended, perhaps into the 20th Century.

The north didn't do away with it actually. It was still legal in several states after Lincoln took office. The Civil War was a war about which oligarchy was to control industry in the U.S. The northern industrialist or the southern.

Slavery was dying in the south. Another 20 or so years and it would have been a major liability to most people even plantation owners due to automation.

Slavery did not by any means die after the Civil War it prospered in the south but the difference was Northern business interest owned the Company Stores in a lot of places. Slavery existed in the mountains of Appalachia into the early 1960's. Nobody called it that but indeed when hard working men owed the company store more per week than they made the company owned them and the laws of the day backed up the company. The workers had a choice. Continue to work enslaved to the company in locations where company owned town lock, stock, and barrel, or go to debtors prison.

Another form of slavery was parents were allowed as were adults to sign persons into apprenticeship programs serving a Master and the person was called just that. The person worked so many years in exchange for food and shelter under a company owner. Many who tried to escape this arrangement were dealt with in a harsh manner.

The industrialist in the north had Honest Abe's sympathy and ear.

The industrialized south was rising fast and the south help major seaports which gave a clear advantage all year. Secession was the very foundation of this nation as it was founded on the very act. I do not think any of the founders would have looked kindly on Abe for starting a war over Secession as they saw it as a states right. Personally I think the U.S. would be better off if some states exercised that sovereign right even today. All Abe Lincoln did about slavery was extend is existence by nearly 100 years at the expense of all living south of the Mason Dixon.

The living and working conditions for all living in the south were lowered. Many of the former slaves had no place to turn to but their former owners who were also broke. Slavery was not a black vs white as many blacks were owners or traders themselves.

No matter what anyone say, secession is not a legal issue to argue among lawyers. Secession is a political matter that requires a political solution.
Whatever the legal opinions, the leaders of the Southern states failed to realize that slavery could be preserved only within the federal union. And slavery could be ended only by a war, as no one believed that the Peculiar Institution could be abolished by any act except a constitutional amendment - which would have been all but impossible to pass in 1860.
Its all but impossible to imagine that the people of any group of states was as ill-served as Southerners were by their leaders in 1860.
The Southern states could have extracted from Lincoln any concession necessary to preserve slavery. Wasn’t his original 13th Amendment - proposed before the war began - designed to protect slavery? Whether he was serious about this amendment is unknown, but the South could have forced him into a political corner from which he would have found it difficult to escape. Instead, they betrayed the people they were elected to represent and blundered into a conflict they could not win. One might forgive the German people - they, after all, were led into WWII by Adolf Hitler - but the leaders of the South were a not a demented guttersnipe. They were educated intelligent men who should have known better. They did not act and destroyed the society they were to sworn to protect.