ML/NJ
“The distinction between secession and revolution is a distinction without a difference. Our Revolution was effectively a secession from the British Empire. The Declaration says “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” Any form, and whenever seem pretty all encompassing, and alter/abolish seem to me what the Southerners were seeking. Anyone who suggests that the government of South Carolina, &c. wouldn’t have be altered following secession is practicing sophistry.”
Well there is a distiction between secession and revolution. Look up either word in any dictionary and you won’t find them to be synonyms. It is theoreticly possible to secede without having a revolution and there have been many revolutions that didn’t involve any secession(France’s and Russia’s revolution for one). Mr. Sandefur goes into detail on why the South’s secession wasn’t constitional and therefore justifiably put down and then goes on to explain why it wasn’t wasn’t a valid revolution.
By that reading, you'd have had no issue with a slave uprising in the south, right? Would you have argued that the south had no right to put down such a rebellion? And if any rebellion is a right, why does the Constitution talk about suppressing insurrections?
Secession is a legal construct. Revolution is an overthrow of the existing legal construct and its replacement with a new one. The American Revoution was the latter, and its leaders made no pretense that what they were doing was somehow legal.