As to the issue of whether or not secession was legal or illegal at the time, the North deemed it so by allowing West Virginia to remain a state after the war. You can’t have it both ways. Anyway, who gave the north ownership of what was legal or illegal as it pertained to secession? That they claim ownership of it’s viability is a good window into how they claimed ownership of everything the South wanted for itself at the time. It is no wonder why the South wanted to end the relationship.
But there's no "both ways" about it -- West Virginia was approved according to the Constitution, which required mutual consent.
No Confederate secession was ever approved constitutionally.
Uncle Sham: "Anyway, who gave the north ownership of what was legal or illegal as it pertained to secession?
That they claim ownership of it’s viability is a good window into how they claimed ownership of everything the South wanted for itself at the time.
It is no wonder why the South wanted to end the relationship."
But it wasn't about "North vs. South" so much as, basically, Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists, meaning those who supported the original Constitution versus those who opposed it.
In 1861 the Democrat descendants of anti-Federalists claimed they didn't need to follow Constitutionally recognized procedures for secession -- meaning mutual consent or material necessity.
Their arguments were indeed strong enough to keep both Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln from attacking Confederates for secession alone.
But both Buchanan and Lincoln announced that Federal properties would not be surrendered and would be defended if necessary.
Jefferson Davis saw that as his opportunity to flip Virginia and other Upper South states from Union to Confederate, and so attacked Fort Sumter.
When Lincoln responded, the Confederate Congress formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
Secession did not cause war, but Fort Sumter did.
It wasn't "the north's" property - it was the property of the United States.