About the same way George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were traitors.
When I was a young man, and still full of public education I would have agreed with you. However, as I near my 60th year, and have had time to read, and began to think for myself, I have to wonder what the founding fathers would have thought about the Civil War.
They laid out a case that the PEOPLE have a right to break away from a form of government that they found oppressive.
We viewed the old Soviet Union as evil because they would incorporate other countries into their union, and once in, you were never to be allowed out. And remember, at the time the "states" entered the union, they were all independently. (Note I am not claiming that 1860 United States was the Soviet Union, only the idea once in, you can never get out seems a little dictatorial.)
So while you are safe in your 2007 world and perhaps have little knowledge of the 1800s, I would suggest at the time, they (those in the south) truly believed they had a right to leave the union, as they were still sovereign nations.
Having said that, I have to lean towards Lincoln and his desire to keep the union intact. The history of the world would be a lot different if the south were allowed to leave. Would the remaining states be powerful enough to push across the great plains, over the Rockies, and capture the west coast. At the time there were several other countries looking at what is now California, Oregon and Washington.
So while I agree that we are better off that the southern states were held in the union, I also concede they had a right to leave, and to fight for those rights.
The men of the south were partiots in the trueset sense of the word.
New York twice debated seceding prior to the CW.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo in “The Real Lincoln” gives a pretty good overview of the motivation behind the reasons stated for launching the CW.
Walter Williams agrees with DiLorenzo’s thesis:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/w-williams1.html
John Quincy Adams, the last Federalist president, thought so, too. I have a quote by him around here somewhere, commenting that it would be a very bad thing to attempt to compel a State against her will, and that disunion would be better than union in fetters.
The South just didn't agree that the rest of the union had those rights. They demanded all the other states respect the "peculiar institution" of slavery, and support their efforts by funding law enforcement to track down runaway slaves and return them.
The South was also in the habit of enslaving any unfortunate non-white who stumbled into any of her ports.
It's too bad the Southern states didn't recognize any individual rights of human beings, we could've skipped the whole Civil War experience.
Absolutely. Does not matter if they wore blue or gray. They were all patriots.