"Where in the Constitution is the anti-secession clause, again?"
ANSWER: There is none. EXCEPT: the Constitution says that a section of a State may not secede from that State unless approved by the State legislature.
This is precisely what happened with West Virginia. They seceded from the State of Virginia UNCOSTITUTIONALLY-- the Virgina legislature NEVER approved it--- but Lincoln DID!!!
In other words, Lincoln approved of the only clearly unconstitutional secession in history!!!!
As for the States, here is the principle:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."--- the Declaration of Independence
I was being sarcastic - but thanks for the West Virginia information. I'd forgotten about that, if I ever knew.
The slavery in America about which we should be concerned now is the slavery of socialism, which reduces legally-free citizens to the status of pets.
It also turns otherwise decent people into the moral equivalent of Simon Legree: "Those people shouldn't be allowed to have children, since they're on welfare." "She should be sterilized; my tax dollars are supporting those children." "Put Depo-Provera in the public water supply; it will only affect those who can't afford bottled water." (This last is an actual FReeper quote, God help us.)
Well look at it another way. Since you believe that the southern acts of secession were legal, and that the confederacy was a legitimate, sovereign nation, then what prevented the western part of Virginia from seceding from Virginia and the confederacy and rejoining the Union?
You would be wrong... it was perfectly Constitutional, and Lincoln had no part in it. Read some West Virginia history.
When it was obvious that the secessionists would carry the day in Richmond, nearly all members from the Western counties of Virginia, and a few from the eastern, walked out of the legislature refusing to participate and formed their own rump legislature in Alexandria. That legislature was recognized by Congress and Representatives were given seats in Congress. The Alexandria legislature gave it's approval to forming a new state since regardless of the outcome of the war, the vast majority of people in the western counties wanted to be away from the tidewater aristocrats who dominated Richmond and had always treated the west as second-class citizens. Congress accepted the petition for statehood in 1863.
It followed the Constitutional requirements to the letter.