If the north broke faith, the compact was also broken and the south decided it could no longer support the relationship and declared itself divorced with the Declaration of Causes.
If it was the northern states prerogative to ignore federal law, (regardless of the slavery issue, as it could have just as well been over the return of stolen cows or horses) why the penalty of death for secession -- particularly since no penalties were mentioned, nor the illegality of succession?
Does anyone in their right mind believe the south would have ratified the constitution if it knew what was coming down the pike?
Of course not.
Even Lincoln knew that the federal government didn't have grounds or justification for attacking the south because of secession, so he set up the Fort Sumter fiasco.
IF the act of secession alone justified federal intervention, Lincoln didn't have to wait for the south to attack the Fort.
Also known as the "We wuz so stoopid we done fell into Linkum's trap" defense.
If they were really interested in peace the South could have let Lincoln supply the fort, maintain the status quo, and waited him out. Instead they chose war, and paid the consequences.
But, they did ratify it. Shoulda-woulda-coulda's don't matter. There were four score and five years of previous shucking and jiving to clarify things legally, before the USSC. Years that saw, not only the Fugitive Slave Act (take that, ye worshipers of "State's Rights"), but the Dred Scott case, the Kansas-Nebraska act, the Missouri Compromise, even the implicit idea that the Constitution should revisit the slavery issue in 1808. It was the South that "broke faith" with the system and resorted to force.
Even Lincoln knew that the federal government didn't have grounds or justification for attacking the south because of secession, so he set up the Fort Sumter fiasco.
The only ones who "set up" the Sumter fiasco were the South Carolinians who decided to forego the rule of law and unilaterally seize Federal property at gun point. Lincoln's government did not do anything that had not been done for years, to wit, supplying a Federal fort with needed supplies.
The old Southron apologia that Lincoln somehow tricked Beauregard into firing on both acknowledged Federal military property filled with US servicemen AND an US naval vessel implies either Beauregard was stone cold stupidly gullible and unfit for command, or the South precipitated the action for its own reasons, using the resupply as a convenient causus belli.
IF the act of secession alone justified federal intervention, Lincoln didn't have to wait for the south to attack the Fort.
No, he didn't. Maybe, unlike the Charleston hotheads, he was not eager to precipitate a civil war.