The legality of secession was not seriously debated. What happened was the side with the most people and guns subjugated the other people who wanted out.
“The legality of secession was not seriously debated. What happened was the side with the most people and guns subjugated the other people who wanted out.”
That’s a fact. The federal government did not want to lose the revenues it was collecting from the Southern states. In 1861 the LAST thing the federal government wanted was to lose the lucrative element of the Southern states, with their agricultural engine and their four-season ports. It still had California, but it was too far away, still relatively undeveloped, and the Panama Canal was still forty years in the future). The fact is that in 1861 the federal government needed the Southern states far more than the Southern states needed the federal government.