You may have been had.
For a lot of people the Confederacy was a bunch of neighborhood guys -- good ol' boys meeting in a garage -- who decided to fight the power and take on the Man.
In many cases, they were the power and the Man. Certainly many East Tennesseeans tended to think so. They trusted the federal government more than they trusted the wealthy planters of the flat lands.
Maybe the 20th century would give their decendants reason to think they'd made the wrong choice. But one has to compare the two alternatives and their consequences, not what actually happened to some imaginary utopian scenario.
But if the state assemblies passed a bill of secession and the governor signed such it should have been recognized as a lawful withdrawal form the Union.
Many or most East Tennesseeans certainly didn't think so. And think back on how things were at the time. Davis and the fireeaters were doing all they could to force the results they wanted. In one state the referendum required to ratify secession never took place. In another the result never has been reliably established. There was violence and threats of violence. It wasn't all a neat and clean measured process.
And what happened after ordinances of secession were passed (and often before)? Property was seized. Supplies and weapons were stolen. Debts renounced. Forts attacked. Even if secession were legal, that left a lot of questions about debts, agreements, responsibilities, obligations, settlements, and federal property. Davis's answer was to pick up the gun.
I don't think you're neighbors were wrong to oppose the rebellion, even at the risk of being attacked as rebels themselves. Keep on reading, and learning, and you may be surprised at what you discover and come to believe.
you're really good at parroting the DAMNyankee/LEFTIST line out of the most extreme, radical fringe of northeastern socialist academia.
free dixie,sw
What I see today as a result of it is sufficient. The CSA was closer to the intent of the founders. Lincoln in effect tore up the U.S. Constitution. Note the withdrawals from the Unions by the states were the choice of the majority living in them. They were done by the state elected governing bodies and vote of the people and as such we as valid as tour withdrawal from Great Britain.
The end result is what we have today. A federal governmnet which is far more powerful than founders intent especially the office of POTUS which is inching closer to become a throne for a dictator. The past seven years it seems there is no power congress will not in direct violation of the Constitution give POTUS nor do they blink an eye taking more and more say away from individual states. That was the Pandora's Box Lincoln opened.