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So, you would rather have had the country split into two separate entities in 1861 rather than have Lincoln do what he did? Well, here's something that bound to get under your skin. "When Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office as President of these United States, there was nothing to protect the national life. Yet with all these discouragements staring us in the face, the Republican party undertook to save your government. We raised your credit; we created navies; raised armies; fought battles; carried the war to a successful issue, and finally when the Rebellion surrendered at Appomattox, they surrendered to a government. The admitted that they had submitted their heresy to the arbitrament of arms, and had been defeated, and they surrendered to the government of the United States of America. They made no claims against the government, for they had none. In the very ordinance of seccession which they signed they pledged themselves, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the overthrow of this government, and when they failed to do it they lost all that they had pledged. They asked, as a boon, that their miserable lives might be spared to them. We gave them their lives. They had forfeited all their property—we gave it back to them. We found them naked, and we clothed them. They were without the rights of citizenship, and we restored to them those rights. We took them to our bosoms as brethren, believing that they had repented of their sins. We killed for them the fatted calf, and invited them to the feast, and they gravely informed us that they had always owned that animal, and were not grateful for the invitation.. By the laws of war, and by the laws of nations, they were bound to pay every dollar of the expense incurred in putting down that rebellion. But we forgave them that debt, and today you are being taxed heavily to pay the interest on the debt that they ought to have paid. Such magnanimity as was exhibited by this Nation to these rebels has never been witnessed on the earth since God made it, and, in my humble judgment, it will never be witnessed again. Mistakes we undoubtedly made—errors we committed—but, in my judgment, the greatest mistake we made, and the gravest error we committed, was in not hanging enough of these rebels to make treason forever odious." - Senator (R-NH) Zachariah Chandler, Speech at McCormick Hall, Chicago, October 31, 1879.

Under my skin? Not really. The first sentance says it all....”there was nothing to protect the national life”

What is a Nation if free people do not have the rights vested to them in the Constitution to seceed from a corrupt mother Government? It’s why we fought the Revolutionary War. It’s why we made rules allowing us to cast off the chains of tyranny when a State found it appropriate.

Lincoln re-wrote the rules to fit his grand vision. Look at what it wrought.

And for the record, I’m a Yankee. I just happen to be a Yankee that completely disagrees with Lincolnites. If our fore-fathers had been alive to see what he accomplished, they’d have spit in his face.