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For me it breaks down like this: Washington fought for self-government. Lee fought on one side of a dispute between parties to the compact that Washington helped create. Indeed, without Washington there is no Constitution, possibly no liberty in America. Without Lee, there is some other General leading the Army of N. Va.

The proper place for disputes between states to be settled under our system is in Congress, or in the courts. Secession is illegitimate.

The proper place for disputes between states to be settled under our system is in Congress, or in the courts. Secession is illegitimate.

It may be now but it wasn't then. A government derives its authority from the consent of the people it governs. If those people want to leave that government (and they comprise a large enough and unanimous area to do it) then they should be allowed to.

The civil war destroyed states rights.

Secession is illegitimate.

Good thing Washington, Jefferson and the others didn't know that.

As for whether or not secession is legitimate under the US Constitution or not, that question became moot once the constition al promises of limited government were abrogated and trampled underfoot.

The founding fathers would most certainly not recognize today's government as resembling anything they had intended to govern the America they founded.

It's downright unAmerican. It's ironic, though, that the war fought in the 1770s was really the First American War of Secession, since they did not intend to bring about a regime change in England or Great Britain, only establish a self-government for the former colonies. That attempted by the Confederacy was the second, and was most certainly neither a *civil war* nor a *war between the states.*

I suspect that we'll see a breakup of the USA similar to that of the Soviet Union, possibly within my lifetime.

That may constitute the Third.

-archy-/-