1. Since it's a re-posting in full of the Sandefur article from 2006 that you had previously posted in 2007 for discussion to the extent of 170 comments, JMHO says you could better have simply linked the article and referred to it, as you did in your later post to Non-Sequitur.
2. Sandefur speaks to, and allegedly as, a Libertarian, but in fact his entire article is Declarationist and his footnotes make numerous references to Union triumphalists like Jack Rakove, James McPherson, and Declarationist golem Harry Jaffa. This is not a "Libertarian" school of thought, but an imperial and nationalistic one.
3. The links to Eugene Volokh's weblog (yours, and the one in Sandefur's article separately) show that he, too, is frankly hostile to the South and is happy to consider the whole region stained ground and its people as the equivalent of only slightly-reclaimed Nazi Germans.
4. Sandefur's article contains a number of erroneous claims, esp. w/ respect to the nature of ratification and his claim that the Constitution was in fact ratified by a jumbo-ized, nationalized, lumpen-proletariat "Peepul" of an organic and unitary United States (rendered by the infamous paperhanger in German as, Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer!" </genocidal rant off>). This claim is flatly untrue, but is advanced (cynically IMHO) to support the novel inventions of Webster and Lincoln about their "Mystical Union". (We've been over all that, by the way. Sandefur is just wrong.)
Support for the Confederacy isn't a libertarian idea either, though some people try to make it so. Sandefur undoubtedly is a libertarian, and has done practical legal work to increase individual liberty. He's earned the right to reexamine the Civil War as much as you or I or anyone else. You may not want to call the result libertarian, but that's an indication of the uneasy fit between libertarian ideals and the actual events of political history.
I don't know about this coinage of "Declarationist" as a way of grouping and rejecting ideas you don't like. Do Goldwaterite Harry Jaffa and Liberal/Social Democrat James McPherson really have that much in common? Does Jack Rakove have much to say about the Civil War or Jaffa's theories? Also, "Declarationist" doesn't appear to fit Sandefur that well either. Judging from the abstract Sandefur's article doesn't appear to be very much influenced by Harry Jaffa's writings on Lincoln the Declaration:
According to many libertarians, the Union's victory in the Civil War represented a betrayal of American Constitution and of the fundamental principles of American political philosophy. These writers contend that secession is a legitimate, constitutional action under the Constitution and that, despite the evil nature of slavery, the federal government had no authority to prevent the southern states from leaving the union. In this paper, I contend that this argument is deeply flawed, and rests on a confusion between secession (a purportedly constitutional act) and revolution (an exercise of coercive force considered legitimate in libertarian political theory only when engaged in as a form self-defense). To counter this confusion, I propose a systematic, two-step analysis: first, does a state have the legal authority under the United States Constitution, to secede unilaterally? And, second, if secession is unconstitutional, was the Confederacy's action in 1861 justified as an act of revolution? I contend that the answer to both questions is no.
Sandefur's argument is about the Constitution more than about the Declaration. He does mention the Declaration, but that's because the Declaration is so often cited as justifying the secessionist rebellion. He does say -- how can you not say? -- that there's something wrong with a rights-based rebellion of slaveowners, but that doesn't make him part of some Jaffaite school, just somebody who sees what's in front of him.
3. The links to Eugene Volokh's weblog (yours, and the one in Sandefur's article separately) show that he, too, is frankly hostile to the South and is happy to consider the whole region stained ground and its people as the equivalent of only slightly-reclaimed Nazi Germans.
I'm not familiar with Volokh, but hostility to the Old South's slaveowners and secessionists doesn't constitute hostility to the whole region and its people. There's more to Southern history than 1860-1865, and more to the South than secessionist ideologues will tell you.
4. Sandefur's article contains a number of erroneous claims, esp. w/ respect to the nature of ratification and his claim that the Constitution was in fact ratified by a jumbo-ized, nationalized, lumpen-proletariat "Peepul" of an organic and unitary United States (rendered by the infamous paperhanger in German as, Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer!" ). This claim is flatly untrue, but is advanced (cynically IMHO) to support the novel inventions of Webster and Lincoln about their "Mystical Union". (We've been over all that, by the way. Sandefur is just wrong.)
The idea that we are citizens of a nation-state is not inherently more totalitarian than the idea that we are citizens of a state (in the sense that most Americans use that word). People who write like you do here generally have some other idea of citizenship that they think is immune from totalitarian usage. You don't. And some of those other theories (about Southern peoplehood, or natural born citizens as opposed to 14th Amendment citizens) can have some pretty scary applications themselves.
Don't forget George Washington. I'm sure you can find some Nazi reference for his notion of "American," too.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.How does it feel to be exactly the sort of person that George Washington warned us about?For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.