Tell that to the Kennedys. Or the Vanderbilts. Or Paris Hilton for that matter. You're deluded if you think there is no caste system in America, despite the fact that it is not formalized. The wealthy landowners in the ante-bellum South were generally hereditary aristocrats. The wealthy factory owners and industrialists of the North were more self-made, to be sure, but only because the Industrial Revolution created vast opportunities in the North that were not exploited in the more agrarian South. Nevertheless, the Industrial Revolution created its share of Northern aristocracy, much of which still exists today, as contrasted to the Southern gentility, which was utterly destroyed (as a social framework, if not as a philosophy) by the War.
Except for the fact that 40% of the population lived as chattel slaves.
Nominally. The lives of factory serfs in the North weren't appreciably better, nor were the lives of various immigrant populations which packed the North's industrial cities. "Slavery" is as much a concept as an institution, and the de facto slavery of the North's factories wasn't much -- if any -- of an improvement over the South's cotton pickers.
Where does the Constitution remove state sovereignty? Article VI, paragraph 2, where the states agree that the Constitution and the statutes enacted by the federal government are "the law of the land."
That's not exactly what Article VI says, is it? In fact, it says that only those laws enacted "under the authority of the United States" and in pursuance of the Constitution have such supremacy. "United States" is a plural nominative and a modifier, not a proper noun. Each state must grant its authority in order for such laws to be the law of the land. Article VI yields no sovereignty to the federal government; indeed it subordinates the law of the land to the collective authority of the states by making the states the authors of federal laws. Note that this applies only to FEDERAL laws; the Constitution specifically reserves to the states the rights to make and enforce those laws not explicitly enumerated in the body of the Constitution. There is no law forbidding secession; therefore the states were empowered to voluntarily dissociate themselves from the Union, just as they voluntarily joined it.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land; not until Marbury was federal LAW considered ascendant. And Marbury was tested -- and effectively negated -- under Dred Scot, a precedent that was not overturned until the War.
Sovereigns decide when to declare war. Sovereigns command the forces from their territory in time of war. Sovereigns negotiate treaties with foreign governments. Sovereigns collect duties on trade. Sovereigns regulate the value of money. Sovereigns are the sole lawmakers and final arbiters of law within their borders.
Certainly those are functions of sovereignty, but not its definition. States yielded up some measure of sovereignty in joining the Union, but not all of it. Where economies of scale dictated, or cultural values were uniform, states were willing to let the federal government rule. But sovereignty isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. States retained the vast majority of their own independence, yielding only those rights specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The War effectively erased that doctrine; it didn't enforce the Constitution as much as it rewrote it ... at the point of a gun.
This explains much: you are unclear on what sovereignty is, and are therefore unaware that the King in Parliament was the sovereign of each of the colonies at the time of the Revolution.
And you are unaware of the concept of plenipotentiary powers, those powers accorded most of the states' governors to act in the Crown's best interest as they saw fit, even if those acts were inconsistent with those of a neighboring colony.
Civil wars are normally accompanied by the wholesale slaughter without legal process of civilians suspected of treason, the attainder and hunting down of prominent families in contravention of law and the summary execution of soldiers who go over to the other side upon their capture.
Nonsense. Certainly those things happened, but there was no universal "model" of civil war. Some were more internecine than others, but I think you're confusing genocide with insurrection.
The Union eschewed all of these standard practices of times past.
As did the Confederacy. There was no wholesale slaughter of prisoners, no "tainting of blood" among differing schools of thought, or random execution of civilians (unless you count Sherman's siege of Atlanta and Grant's siege of Vicksburg).
Compare the treatment of the Communards in Paris in 1871 with the treatment of the pro-slavery mobs of Baltimore in 1861.
Not one person in Baltimore was executed for sedition in the attempt to overthrow the loyal government of MD or for the murder by the mob of four uniformed soldiers. In Paris, 20,000 were executed in one week in spring 1871.
The Union was and remains a model of domestic restraint in the face of treason and mutiny.
Restraint, perhaps. But you vastly overstate the case when you hold them without sin. To even suggest such a thing is irresponsible and absurd. And since the Confederacy did not engage in any such oppressive behavior either, by your measure, they too were sinless.
The Union was and remains a model of overweening, presumptive authority conjured up to sustain itself, not to benefit its constituents. Despite the Founders' fear of centralized government, and their devotion to securing the rights of states to counterbalance tyrannical authority, the Union enforced a nonexistent obligation to an imagined body, and obliterated a way of life for no better reason than that it considered it "peculiar."
Until your owner sells your children.
Obviously there are elements of a caste system - however that does not make it eligible for praise or encouragement.
You are saying that the caste system of the South was a selling point. I am saying that caste systems are not selling points.
The lives of factory serfs in the North weren't appreciably better
There has never been serfdom in the US. There has been indentured servitude, chattel slavery, contracted employment and at-will employment.
Most Northern laborers were at-will employees, not attached for life by bonds of serfdom to any master or property.
the de facto slavery of the North's factories
Only a small minority of the North's population were factory workers - most Northerners worked in agriculture. The North's industrial base only seemed large in comparison to the South's nonexistent one. And de facto slavery never obtained anywhere in the North.
"United States" is a plural nominative and a modifier, not a proper noun.
Of course it's a proper noun.
The states are not the authors of federal laws - the Congress is.
And Congress is elected by apportionment of the general population and are agents of their districts, not their states.
There is no law forbidding secession
Of course there is.
Article VI makes it clear that the member states are relieved of their prerogatives in favor of the federal government in some very key areas. The entire point of secession is to be able to remove oneself from federal legal and juridical oversight, to negotiate one's own treaties with foreign powers, etc. And the states ceded these prerogatives to the federal government.
But sovereignty isn't an all-or-nothing proposition.
Of course it is. You can't half-have the power to negotiate treaties. You can't half-have the power to command armies. You can't have 15% of the ability to interpret the law.
And you are unaware of the concept of plenipotentiary powers, those powers accorded most of the states' governors to act in the Crown's best interest as they saw fit, even if those acts were inconsistent with those of a neighboring colony.
In other words, they were delegated power by the Crown to act in the Crown's name. So they were not sovereigns, but were accountable to the true sovereign: the King in Parliament.
As did the Confederacy.
I never said that Confederacy committed such crimes. You slandered the Union on that account.
Sherman's siege of Atlanta and Grant's siege of Vicksburg).
Were sieges magically declared contrary to the laws of war in the 1860s?
the Union enforced a nonexistent obligation to an imagined body
The United States exists, I assure you.
obliterated a way of life for no better reason than that it considered it "peculiar."
Or for the very good reason that this peculiar way of life rose up in armed sedition against the legally-constituted government for no good reason whatever.