Who decides whether or not a people have a right to secede?
Maybe this should act as a guide:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
So did any of those conditions exist in 1860?
Was there a long train of abuses by the federal government prior to 1860?
Walt
However, that does not change the fact that I beleive that people have a right to self-governement, and that such right can not be based upon the judgement of others, or else it is not a right at all. What if during the revolution, France, Russia, Germany and a whole bunch of other nations came in and said "well guys, you've made your case, but we just don't think it rises to the level of secession." We would have said, "piss off, it is not your judgement call, it is ours". So I agree with your assesment of the South's reasons for seceeding, but it is not our judgement call, it was theirs.