[Ditto]

What you are failing to do is contemplate the political concept of secession on its own. It is entirely possible that one could be completely dismissive of the South's reasons for secession in 1860 and yet understand that the political act of secession itself is not necessarily tied to the reasons of 1860.

I prefer to rely on James Madison who certainly knew what revolution was and what the Constitution meant. In 1833, he said that secession in the absense of intellorable abuse was just another name for revolution.

Unlike the men of Philadelphia in 1776, the south never demonstrated intollerable abuse in 1860. Losing an free and fair election is not a cause for revolution.

[Arkinsaw]

I prefer to rely on James Madison who certainly knew what revolution was and what the Constitution meant. In 1833, he said that secession in the absense of intellorable abuse was just another name for revolution.

Madison wasn't very consistent. He also co-wrote the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions that bemoaned the attempt to concentrate power "into one sovereignty" and made reference to the Constitution as a "compact to which the States are parties" and that the States are "not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government" and that "as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."

Madison is stating that the Constitution is a compact that each State can judge for itself whether it has been violated and what measure of redress is required of them.

When the founders threw out the "perpetual union" of the articles he was asked what should be done about States that did not ratify the new Constitution and went their own way. He replied that they should bid them go as brothers and hope they returned.

In fact, the Constitutional Convention considered and rejected a provision that would have authorized the use of Union force against a recalcitrant state. On 31 May 1787, the Constitutional Convention considered adding to the powers of Congress the right to call forth the force of the union against any member of the union, failing to fulfil its duty under the articles thereof.

The clause was rejected after James Madison spoke against it:

A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.

Madison, taken in small doses, is not efficacious.