Yes, yes, that’s true.
1st war for independence, 1776, Win
2nd war for independence, 1861, Loss
Tie breaker?
Here’s a more important discussion I’d like to start — IS THE UNION A PERMANENT STATE? OR DOES THE CONSTITUTION PROVIDE A MEANS FOR STATES TO SECEDE?
Here’s what I personally believe ( and I could be wrong ).
The original 13 states formed a “Confederation,” under which each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” The Constitution didn’t change this; each sovereign state was free to reject the Constitution. The new powers of the federal government were “granted” and “delegated” by the states, which implies that the states were PRIOR and SUPERIOR to the federal government.
Even in The Federalist, the brilliant propaganda papers for ratification of the Constitution (largely written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison), the United States are constantly referred to as “the Confederacy” and “a confederate republic,” as opposed to a single “consolidated” or monolithic state. Members of a “confederacy” are by definition free to withdraw from it.
Hamilton and Madison hoped secession would never happen, but they never denied that it was a right and a practical possibility. They envisioned the people taking arms against the federal government if it exceeded its delegated powers or invaded their rights, and they admitted that this would be justified. Secession, including the resort to arms, was the final remedy against tyranny. (This is the real point of the Second Amendment.)
Strictly speaking, the states would not be “rebelling,” since they were sovereign; in the Framers’ view, a tyrannical government would be rebelling against the states and the people, who by defending themselves would merely exercise the paramount political “principle of self-preservation.”
The Constitution itself is silent on the subject, but since secession was an established right, it didn’t have to be reaffirmed. More telling still, even the bitterest opponents of the Constitution never accused it of denying the right of secession.
Three states ratified the Constitution with the provision that they could later secede if they chose; the other ten states accepted this condition as valid.
So true, I’m starting to believe the civil war was just put on hold until they could get the blacks to help the confederates enslave all of humanity!