re: If secession was legal then what right did the North have to keep the South in the USA?

“[T]he contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation.”
London Times, November 7, 1861

“They (the South) know that it is their import trade that draws from the peoples pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest. These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the union”.
New Orleans Daily Crescent-1861

“The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing… it is very clear that the South gains by this process and we lose. No…we must not let the South go”.
Union Democrat Manchester, New Hampshire. 19 February, 1861

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It didn't have the same historical allegiance as the north and couldn't be easily controlled so the North started measures to weaken the south economically out of fear the south would grow stronger and be a tool of Britain etc

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That is simply not true. Slavery as an economic problem WAS the main component in the problem. To suggest otherwise is like pissing in the wind.

The Southern baws were not some sort of aristocrtaic idealistic types. They were cold hard business men and slaves and agricultural endeavors was money to them. They needed more lands in the west to farm . Places like Kansas with really good farm land particularly in the Eastern part was a big deal for them...as was the Eastern part of the Indian territory (Oklahoma).

Your assertion that an alliance with Europe was becoming problematic is pure fantasy as well. Yes Europe liked cheap American cotton, but they liked the finished product even better and the North was churning out clothes and fabric and other textiles. Also Great Britain abolishes slavery in June 1833 and the British public was not too keen on allying with a country who had as one of its founding tenants the preservation of slavery. The French were more complicated - see Maximilien in Mexico 1864-1867

The Civil War just like most wars are about money and territory- economics. Slavery was a bad deal economically for the North.....it was not all that good overall for most Southerners in that it depressed wages for poorer whites. The sales job that the Southern political class pulled on its own people is one of the best in history.

The North were no angels in this either. They put up killer tariffs on cotton . 75% of the Federal Government atone time was funded by this sectional tariff . Very little makes it way back to the Southern States.

But who picked the cotton - slaves
Who was depressing the wages of poor white people in the South - slaves
Who was deprssing the wages of incoming immigrants - slaves

What was the reason for "Bloody Kansas" slavery ( South thought that the new stats should not be allowed to ban slavery

What really pissed off the North was the Fugitive Slave Act - now they could go to jail for helping runaway slaves . They were forced to rat out to Southern bounty hunters

All of this has a common thing - SLAVERY

Stop the bullshite of States Rights. It was not that, it was the fact that the South could not bare to see that the institution was dying out nationally and the Federal Government which under its enumerated powers had the power to regulate commerce was no longing keen on expanding an institution that a majority of the states and people no longer wanted.

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But here is my initial thought. Since the Constitution does not specifically address leaving the Union, but does address joining it, wouldn't it be logical that the same mechanisms for joining would be instituted in leaving?

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The 10th Amendment says no!

No mechanisms defined means that right is ceded to the state(s).

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The 10th Amendment says no!

No mechanisms defined means that right is ceded to the state(s).

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I mean that argument seems reasonable on its, but now there is SCOTUS precedent against it as well, and others reference other parts of the text against it (Article 1 Section 10; a perfect union).

But my issue is that if the forming of a union requires consent of the state and the federal government, then the divorce from this "perfect union" should require mutual consent from the parties of that unuon.

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I mean that argument seems reasonable on its, but now there is SCOTUS precedent against it as well

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False.

They didn't!

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False

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What do you mean false? I was referring to NOW, so you would be right that it was false at the time of the Civil War.

But in 1868, there was a SCOTUS decision:

Texas v. White

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When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.

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“The Union government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States.”
London Spectator in reference to the Emancipation Proclamation

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I have and I'll say this: we project our modern moral feelings of slavery onto a economic/political debate of their time. The rationale for succession wasn't "hey we WANT to be evil so let's leave". That's obviously freaking retarded. The rationale was "these Yankees are trying to subvert our economy, tax us up the arse, and subvert their will over us"

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I completely agree with you.