re: Abraham Lincoln was a lot of things but he knew what was up.

I think the Emancipation Act was only to cause rebellion in the South and weaken the Confederacy as they already left the Union.

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So if they succeeded and were not under the Constitution how could Lincoln attack an essentially foreign country to force them back into the Union? They were either part of the Union or not.

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The executive is constitutionally allowed to use force to enforce the law and prevent illegal secession. Lincoln is not the only president who believed this.

Look up the nullification crisis in South Carolina and Andrew Jackson's response to it in the 1832 Nullification Proclamation. Jackson, I will remind everyone here, is historically known as a very strong States rights proponent.

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Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties which has been expressed, I rely with equal confidence on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws-to preserve the Union by all constitutional means-to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United States.

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- Andrew Jackson

You cannot celebrate the birth and survival of a nation while simultaneously wishing it had been broken apart and defeated.

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Ad hominem attack over grammar

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Spelling and grammar after fundamentally different things. This is a particularly ironic statement from you in that I responded to an ad hominem attack that you had posted in suggesting someone else was ignorant of history. Specifically, you snarkily added a “Do you know your history?” Tag to a post. I find it a bit jarring to have someone play the “I’m more educated than you” card when misspelling basic terms related to the topic.

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your argument is apparently so fertile that it can defend itself is also laughable.

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What argument is it that you believe I have made? I commented that calling a person ignorant of Civil War era history while grossly misspelling the word secede multiple times was ironic. I will also state that the comment you have made above about an argument being fertile to the point of defending itself makes no sense. I’m NOT saying that I disagree with the premise you have presented. I am saying that you have strung together words seemingly at random to the point of incomprehensibility.

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The southern states were wrong morally, politically, and legally in their arguments for secession that it took the Dred Scott decision, to give them the flimsiest of ground to stand on

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Legally that decision was not made until after the CW was over. The Constitution didn’t say states could or could not exit the Union, just as it doesn’t speak to a large number of specific things. There was definitely a states’ rights argument to be made. I doubt most of us want to claim that something is not allowed unless the Constitution specifically says it is. As far as politics goes, what exactly do you mean by politically wrong? As far as morality goes, there is no argument to be made that slavery was in any way moral. However, secession and slavery are not the same thing.

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Legally that decision was not made until after the CW was over. The Constitution didn’t say states could or could not exit the Union, just as it doesn’t speak to a large number of specific things.

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That is a flimsy argument. "States can seceed because its not stated they cant." States willingly yielded a portion of their sovereignty to a federal government when they formed a compact under the constitution. To say they had the right to seceed is to say they had the right to take those powers back whenever they wanted. It is absurd to believe the constitution is such a weak document that it can be abandoned at the whim of a majority of a state, yet strong enough to say it allows States the right to seceed under the law.

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As far as politics goes, what exactly do you mean by politically wrong?

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The south was one of the last bastions of slavery in the west. The south had to adopt expansion or it had to admit what it was doing was wrong. The only way they had retained any kind of political power was due to the 3/5ths compromise (which is a bit ironic because the Dred Scott decision said that black people could not even be citizens).

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However, secession and slavery are not the same thing.

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Secession happened because of slavery. You can argue its over states rights, but I would ask what was the states rights they were fighting for? The answer, is the states rights to own slaves.

You cannot celebrate the birth and survival of a nation while simultaneously wishing it had been broken apart and defeated.

To dwell on slavery as the entire issue is fundamentally wrong. The balance of power between the state and federal government was always much deeper than that. So many issues we have today wouldn’t exist if Washington didn’t get to make decisions that were never meant to them.

What I don't understand why the North couldn't help the South to become more industrialized to the point that they no longer needed slavery?

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That is a flimsy argument. "States can seceed because its not stated they cant." States willingly yielded a portion of their sovereignty to a federal government when they formed a compact under the constitution

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Yet, it was, and still is, a major point of contention. Those that view the Constitution as a document that outlines the limits of power for the federal government would have strongly agreed that by not specifically stating that the US government had the power to force states to stay, it meant it didn’t have that power. It was not legal to do so as there was no established law. States are still fighting against federal supremacy in numerous ways today.

It is equally absurd to assume that states are forced into a relationship with a union that opposes their best interests. You stated they yielded a Portion of their sovereignty to the federal government. Id argue that many of the framers at the original constitutional convention would have argued that states had supremacy in all areas not specifically mentioned. It is unlikely many would have agreed to a union with the understanding they had no recourse to leave if they felt abused by it. After all, they had just come out of a war dealing with exactly that kind of situation. Even though the CW got rid of a societal evil in slavery, that does not make the basis for the war just and legal. It certainly does not excuse the excesses of the occupying union forces. I agree completely that secession was at its root due to the issue of slavery. Even with the positive outcome of abolition, it is foolish to refuse to recognize that some dangerous seeds for federal supremacy and overreach were sown by Lincoln and the IS government at the time.