You lot out there, I hope you are listening. Dr. Williams is no fool.
Lincoln did articulate a view of secession that would have been heartily endorsed by the Confederacy: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Lincoln expressed that view in an 1848 speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting the war with Mexico and the secession of Texas.
Thus, according to Lincoln and Williams, the right to secession or independence is dependent upon the power to successfully effectuate the change. Neither Lincoln nor Williams suggests that an existing government cannot or should not resist an attempt to secede or an attempt to declare independence.
And, that's what happened. Some Southerners attempted to secede, the existing government resisted and the existing government prevailed.
Anyone has the ability to attempt to resist or to overthrow the existing government in a geographical area. As long as you acknowledge that the existing government has a right to defend itself, there is nothing particularly controversial about any of this. I think the controversy surrounds the suggestion by some that the existing government cannot properly contest an attempted secession or declaration of independence.
So many problems with this article. First off, there’s the statement that it wasn’t a Civil War because only wars with two or more entities trying to take over the central government can be caused Civil Wars. First off, this definition is wrong, and secondly, who cares! By any name it was an illegal war over slavery.
The next big problem is that the article talks about outlawing slavery and poo-poos the Emancipation Proclamation. So, for at least the fifth time, the Union was not fighting the Civil War to outlaw slavery, it was fighting the war to maintain the Union, and because the Confederacy started the shooting part of the war by engaging in an unprovoked attack on Fort Sumter.
When I say the war was about slavery what I am talking about is why the Southern States seceded and started the war. The reason, as in shown in the Articles of Secession (for 5 states at least, the other states did not list a reason in their Articles of Secession) was slavery. I will conclude with my go-to statement from the Mississippi Articles of Secession “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world.”
So, to summarize, this article splits hairs over a word meaning, and then talks about an issue that is not in contention at all (that the North didn’t fight the war to outlaw slavery), without once ever discussing who started the war (the South), and why (defense of slavery).