Accountable;973433 wrote: According to this timeline, the states did secede, but Buchanan and later Lincoln didn't honor their sovereignty and kept forts in the area occupied. So it wasn't the hot-headed rednecks you quip about who started the war.
I'm no expert on this, but the time and legality question fascinates me, so I look forward to learning alot from this thread. :-6
I'm no expert either. In my view, the South was morally in the wrong, although legally may have had the option to secede. I think the mistake though was in doing it unilaterally, and violently, since it was seen as a military coup.
Lincoln's argument was interesting:
"Lincoln denied that the Union was a mere voluntary association--and claimed that even if it were, ordinary principles of contract law would bar unilateral secession. Lincoln noted that while one party can breach a contract, the consent of all parties is required to rescind a contract. But secessionists analogized the Constitution to a treaty, not a contract--on the ground that each state was more like a sovereign nation than a human being. And under treaty law, unilateral rescission is permissible."
From:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20041124.html
I think the South fixated on the idea of unilateral secession, but didn't need to. It only had to become such a nuisance, that the North would have wanted to separate from it voluntarily.
But practically speaking had the South seceded, it would have collapsed anyway ... it was destroying itself economically with slavery. Why hire a a person to do a job, when they could buy someone and pay them nothing? After collapse, it would then be absorbed either back into the U.S. or Mexico. This would have created a lot of political instability I think, resulting in even bloodier warfare (possibly lasting to this day). The act of secession has practical effects which pose a danger to the other states. To this degree, unilateral secession is reckless, and fails to recognize how these actions will affect the other party.
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