Really, tell us please, how low does your IQ have to get before you become so utterly lacking in reading comprehension?
What exactly is your problem?
Lawful secession was understood and assumed by the Founders.
Declarations of secession, even though unlawful, were also allowed by both Presidents Buchanan & Lincoln.
What, exactly, don't you "get" about that?
So Civil War came, not because of secession, or slavery, or the new Confederacy, but only because that Confederacy first provoked, then started, then formally declared war on the United States, then supported rebel forces at war within Union states.
That's why debate of lawful secession is irrelevant to causes of the Civil War.
achilles2000: "You don’t read carefully, you don’t know the relevant literature, and you have trouble reasoning."
False, false & false. But your own words clearly do apply to you, FRiend.
achilles2000: "In particular, the doctrine of enumerated powers and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are a mystery to you.
The South, New England, New York City, and others at various times believed they had the right to secede."
Rubbish. Our Founders agreed to lawful secession, by mutual consent.
None -- not one -- agreed that seceding states had a "constitutional right" to provoke, start and declare war on the United States, or send their forces to invade the Union.
achilles2000: "You are simply a big government conservative who doesn’t want to recognize what historians already acknowledge; namely, that Lincoln was a dictator who acted largely outside the law."
Rubbish. The truth here is that you are an automaton who has your script of pro-Confederate talking points, and are not allowed to deviate from them, even to the point of acknowledging basic facts of history.
So I'm telling you again: throw that stinking script away, and go back to learning some real history for a change.
It will improve your life, and set you free from lies.
achilles2000: "The American Constitutional Republic today is as dead as the Roman Republic in the days of Augustus Caesar, and it is largely the fault of generations of faux “conservatives” like you."
No, the American Constitutional Republic, though wounded, is far, far from dead.
Our President is far from Augustus Caesar who was in his day considered Son of God, life-time Emperor, and subject to no restrictions by elected representatives.
Yes, the Federal government is more than ten times the size of 100 years ago, but the reasons are not because of conservatives like myself.
Instead, the reasons include descendants of European serfs, African slaves and Asian coolies -- men & women born in the land of the free, home of the brave -- who no longer wish to be either brave or free.
Instead, they want return to an idealized manor or plantation, where the Man in the Big House protects & cares for them, while they enjoy the fruits of civilization, without having to pay its full price.
FRiend, I consider your wish to return to the Free Republic of old, to be noble & well intentioned.
But your ignorance of real history, and your slavish devotion to pro-Confederate talking points is frustrating to me, and counter-productive to your cause.
Our Founders themselves understood that slavery was evil, and had to be addressed at some point... in the future, they thought.
Naturally they hoped and did not expect that would lead to Civil War, but they didn't count on the hot-headedness of the Deep South's slave-power Fire Eaters.
I can see how you think the Republic is only “wounded”. After all, you make excuses for the evil and unconstitutional Alien & Sedition Act, using as an excuse the alleged needs of the time. As I have pointed out before, this is the leftwing jurisprudence of the “Living Constitution” - the Constitution as suggestion, not law. On that basis the “New Deal” and the “Great Society” were constitutional. Not only that, you embrace the promoters of mercantilism, which is just a polite name for crony capitalism. You also worship a dictator who unconstitutionally abolished habeas corpus, shut down hundreds of newspapers, unconstitutionally began printing money and imposed an income tax, an deported a Congressman who opposed his policies.
In the final analysis, Lincoln started the war by refusing letting the Deep South exercise its right to leave. I have provided sources from which it is clear that he had offered to give the South almost any level of autonomy as long as he could collect tariffs for the purpose of protecting Northern industries. In essence he was trying to make a tax colony out of the South. When he sent a flotilla, including warships, to reinforce Sumter which could act as a means for enforcing the Morrill Tariff, the South Carolinians fired on Sumter. Even Northern newspapers, as I quoted to you, recognized that Lincoln played the Sumter gambit to provoke an action that would turn the tide of public opinion in the North toward war. Lincoln is also recognized as not dealing in good faith with the Peace Commission.
By the way, my IQ is just fine; your ability to think independently of your indoctrination in the religion of Lincoln and statism isn’t.