During the Civil War, while Lincoln was president, West Virginia was allowed to secede from Virginia without opposition. I'd say this fact alone cements the right to secede. You can't have it both ways.
You said — “During the Civil War, while Lincoln was president, West Virginia was allowed to secede from Virginia without opposition. I’d say this fact alone cements the right to secede. You can’t have it both ways.”
LOL..., that pretty funny, since Lincoln didn’t control Virginia... Lincoln didn’t have anything to do with the government of Virginia at the time, since Virginia was in the Confederacy...
Despite its central location and disputed territory, West Virginia suffered comparatively little. Early in the war, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson led the Great Train Raid of 1861, which resulted in the capture of several locomotives and rolling stock of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Jackson later led his men in what became known as the Romney Expedition, an unsuccessful attempt to firmly establish Confederate control over western Virginia. In a series of relatively small battles, McClellan’s forces gained possession of the greater part of the territory in the summer of 1861. Later that year Robert E. Lee attempted to retake western Virginia but was ultimately defeated by a far smaller Union force at the Battle of Cheat Mountain. A key part of the Union strategy in West Virginia for the rest of the war was to keep the vital Baltimore and Ohio Railroad open as a major supply and troop transportation route.
On June 20, 1861, delegates from the western counties of Virgina (who had voted overwhelmingly against secession) met at the Second Wheeling Convention and declared that because Richmond had seceded all state offices had been vacated. The Convention stepped into the role of filling these state offices calling itself the Restored State of Virginia [1]
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On June 20, 1863, the newly proclaimed state of West Virginia was admitted to the Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_in_the_American_Civil_War
It sounds like the Confederacy couldn’t get West Virginia back during the war, so a “new state” was admitted to the Union — West Virginia...
There was no secession from the Union allowed by Lincoln...
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I still can’t stop laughing at the idea that “Lincoln allowed secession...” LOL... [can’t type anymore; laughing too hard...]