When Chris Matthews asked Pat Buchanan who was right in the Civil War, Buchanan responded:
“I think in a way both sides were right. Lincoln had a right to save the Union. I think they [the South] had a right to go free.”
It’s awfully generous of Buchanan to acknowledge Lincoln’s right to preserve the Union. But it seems a tad problematic to have a Union from which each state has the right to secede.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Now, I know the preamble has no force of law, but you can’t insure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense by taking up arms against the federal government.
But, however you look at secession as a Constitutional matter, it should be possible in the 21st-Century to declare the Confederates in the wrong during the Civil War. They left the Union not to preserve the institution of slavery in their own states, but to establish it in the new western territories. Lincoln had no intention of abolishing slavery in the states in which it already existed. I’d also remind you that South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas all seceded from the Union before Lincoln could even be inaugurated. It was almost the same as how these folks are treating President Obama. It’s irrational.
But you can say anything on teevee if you’re a Republican and it won’t cost you your job.
