These threads always revolve into a debate about slavery so I’ll jump right there. Let’s assume for a second that the South really did want to endlessly propagate slavery and left the union solely for that purpose. So what? How does that change the essential elements of what happened? They tried to leave, the federal government invaded them, destroyed their industries and property, killed large numbers of them, occupied their territories with military forces, installed military governments and then hand picked civilian governments for them, forced them to pass amendments to the Constitution before it would let them fully rejoin the union.
I liken it to a marriage in which the wife cheats on the husband and runs off. She was wrong, but that doesn’t give the husband the right to track her down, beat her up, drag her back to the home kicking and screaming, and then lock her up as a virtual hostage. And if he does, whatever they have in that house is no longer a marriage.
Whatever we have in this country after 1865, it’s no longer a constitutional republic.
More like the husband tracked her down, killed her and threw her corpse back in the bedroom and has been screwing her ever sinse.
