[republicanwizard]

Well, Southerners evidently felt that a person's lack of citizenship, I mean being a slave, could be defended at gunpoint. So why not the acquisition or maintenance of citizenship?

[warchild9]

Arguing about slavery is a red herring, as irrelevant as arguments about Lincoln's sexual preferences.
An appropriate contemporary argument would concern the meaning of citizenship, and whether politicians, for whatever reason, have a right to maintain their power over others using force, and whether the Constitution as a contract concedes adherence to the Union under threat of death.

[TexConfederate1861]

Well, maybe they were better off than they were in Africa....but of course a enlightened Neo-Yank like yourself wouldn't consider that possibility.