At the emotional level, I say begone and good riddance.
However, if California wants to leave and is allowed to do so it would mean any state can and will leave whenever they wish to do so.
That would mean the country would eventually dissolve.
I do not want to see the nation dissolve. Neither did Abraham Lincoln.
But what if California really wants to leave and is NOT allowed to do so? If they push hard enough and we don’t let them go, it would mean another Civil War.
No sane person wants a Civil War. Neither did Lincoln.
Actually he did want war, unlike Pierce and Buchanan before him. War was the reason for implementing Scott’s Anaconda and calling up 75,000 troops. Lincoln’s old Democrat rival Douglas endorsed Lincoln’s use of force to compel the seceding states to remain in the Union. What Lincoln didn’t expect was the huge extent of the war he was setting in motion.