Even if one were to imagine that secession were constitutional - which it emphatically is not - it is the Confederacy which inaugurated hostilities.
The Confederacy made war on the Union.
Slavery, while being one of many issues, was NOT as much of a driving force as our pabulum-fed school kids are taught today to believe.
Secession was initiated as a response to the election of Abraham Lincoln and the concomitant fear that a Lincoln administration would see the admission of enough non-slave states to permanently overrule the slave state minority in the House and Senate. While a host of issues stoked the fires of rebellion, slavery was the central question.
It's a little hard to protect States you believe to still be in the union when you are actively invading them
The federal government has a responsibility to protect the people of the United States from rebellion, whether they constitute a minority of a state's population or not.
And, of course, 40% of the South's population was not even allowed a voice at the polls during the wave of secessions.
The Confederacy made war on the Union.
Nope. If you support the war in Iraq, then you basically have no position. The federal government was already preparing to make war on the first States that had seceded - mobilising troops and armaments for the effort. The second wave of secession was prompted in part by these preparations for coercion. Upper South States were tipped over the edge by indignation at the coercive preparations, and would not make war on other States. The Confederacy was pre-emptively responding to an imminent Northern attack, by removing spurs which could have been used to more easily make that attack.
Secession was initiated as a response to the election of Abraham Lincoln and the concomitant fear that a Lincoln administration would see the admission of enough non-slave states to permanently overrule the slave state minority in the House and Senate. While a host of issues stoked the fires of rebellion, slavery was the central question.
No, slavery was the emotional question. One of many in the totality of issues. It was there, but it was the public face for larger economic issues which loomed for the past few decades.
The federal government has a responsibility to protect the people of the United States from rebellion, whether they constitute a minority of a state's population or not.
The Constitution doesn't say that, sorry. Read the relevant sections more closely. The Constitution tasks the federal government with protecting STATES from internal rebellions. When the State itself if "in rebellion", there is no constitutional provision for protecting "some people inside that State" who disagree with the decision to secede.
And, of course, 40% of the South's population was not even allowed a voice at the polls during the wave of secessions.
Which is an irrelevant argument for an age when, even in the most progressive Northern States, only a small minority of the population (white males at or above a certain economic status) would have been able to exercise the franchise anywise.
Ratification of the Constitution makes a state part of the union. Apparently, you don’t believe that repealing that ratification would remove one from the union.