Why? In this context, all a Federation suggests it that the constituent parts (here the states) retain control of their internal affairs. It says nothing about the Federation's permanence.
You can make a much stronger case for treason against the founding fathers, who revolted against a Government that claimed to be ordained by God.
Actually what the founding fathers committed was treason to King George III. And thank God for it. Just as Claus Von Stauffenberg committed treason against Adolf Hitler. The question is whether that treason was to be denounced or applauded.
The idea that the Federal Government has some sort of all overriding claim on the States is more akin to the Nazi German theory of one Reich, one Volk, one Leader, than anything ever intended for America.
I disagree here. The Nazi reference is interesting in that they eliminated the traditional role of the Länder and made the state a unified state. The Bundesrepublik after the war revered the Länder to a federated state. I would not say that the Federal Gov't in the US, even at its strongest, ever eliminated the existence of the state governments. However, the question is really whether a voluntary submission to a federal republic can be reversed. That is the essence of the secession question.
I disagree here. The Nazi reference is interesting in that they eliminated the traditional role of the Länder and made the state a unified state. The Bundesrepublik after the war revered the Länder to a federated state. I would not say that the Federal Gov't in the US, even at its strongest, ever eliminated the existence of the state governments.
The Reconstruction Congress did everything possible to reduce the State Governments in the South to puppets for an over-riding totalitarian vision of what American Societies should conform to. It is very much analogous to the Hitlerian concept of one Germany, with one Will (his). The America of the Founding Fathers was something very different. South Carolina and Massachusetts could both adhere, because it was premised on an understanding of what values were common and what were not.
We were not, by reason thereof, a House Divided Against itself, because we understood that we were not a single House but a friendly neighborhood; one which allowed each Household to manage their own affairs in all the vast areas, where our values were not common. The South seceded, because for the first time, a Government was elected with only the perceived values of some of the people in one Section. That was a situation that George Washington, the one American who clearly defined the common values, specifically warned against.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
[Where the resources include not only several essays directly relevant to these questions, as they pertain to the present era, but also addresses by such luminaries of the earlier era as Webster and Calhoun, to help put these issues in a truer perspective.]