“levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies”
Which South Carolina and the Confederacy did not do. Did the Confederacy invade the North? No.
In the early months of 1861, those 7 deep south states did not invade the "North" however you care to define the "North". But they did declare war on the United States (Northern States????) but even that was not what what started the shooting.
Those seven small states with the full support of their elected leaders did attack the United States in numerous instances at forts, arsenals, mints, post offices, custom offices and and any Federal institutions in their states... you name it as far as Federal installations go. They took up arms and took those facilities by force of arms.
It was not an attack of one or several states upon another. It was an attack by individual states on all the other states in the Union who had equal rights to those same facilities that had been taken by force of arms.
That is Insurrection and Rebellion. I can't begin to think of any other name for it.
We can argue about justifications for there actions for the rest of our lives, but please don't somehow pretend it was a lawful act and a president, any president, was unjustified or not authorized and even mandated under his oath of office to resist it. That idea is simply beyond ridiculous.
I never understood why so many Lost Causers like to call themselves 'Rebels' but refuse to acknowledge what happened then was a Rebellion.
"Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?"I think Lincoln answered that question as best he could 150 years ago.
--- A. Lincoln, 1861
But that is a question we need to be asking more and more today.
JCBreckenridge: "Which South Carolina and the Confederacy did not do."
The Confederacy's military assault on the US Army in Fort Sumter was its first major act of war against the United States.
JCBreckenridge: "Did the Confederacy invade the North? No."
Yes, the Confederacy invaded Union states and territories many times, and the first of those came before any Union troops "invaded" Confederate states.
Here again is my list of the more important Confederate invasions of the United States: