Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat
Thorn69,
You are assuming the South had the right to secede, the federal government did not recognize the right of the rebel states to leave the Union unilaterally. They viewed that action as illegal.
If the Southern states really wanted to assert or confirm their legal right to withdraw from the Union, the proper channel was to the US Supreme Court which is the final arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution
so yes, you are right that the immediate cause was whether the secessionist states had the right to leave, but that begs the question, why did they leave in the first place? It was because they were worried that the election of Lincoln as president would endanger the institution of slavery.
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They didn't recognize the right to secede until AFTER it was already done. That's sort of like how King George didn't give the colonies the right to secede from Great Britain to form their own nation. If the South had won the war, the north's law's and how they interpreted them wouldn't have made a damn now would it?!
Just like we don't give a damn how Britain runs it's country today. You also have to consider the bias intereptation that the north took into account when reading over the Constitution. It was the north that decided what the law was and its legality - not the South's.