For a thought experiment: let's say the Southern States had decided the day after they signed the Constitution to secede from the Union? That is the very next day? Would that have been a rebellion? Would that have required Federal troops to come in and enforce them to return to the Union? It seems not. After all it was a voluntary agreement. There was no clause in it that it was perpetual. So forget the next day. Maybe ten years down the road? Or twenty? Could there have been a grace period? Or maybe the best idea was not to be stubborn about it and let the South find its own way and perhaps return to the Union in a few years. After all the terms of union had already changed. The Articles of Confederation of 1781 were the first set of agreements.
The articles of Confederation actually said that that document was perpetual. Articles 13. Not the Constitution. So should the Second Congress have been thought to be traitors to the first agreement?
Should perhaps all the states have invaded and wiped out each other for being traitors to the first agreement? That seems unlikely.
And from the standpoint of objective morality : it is hard to see the preservation of the Union has a greater prima facie value than: "Thou Shalt Not Kill."
However I can see the greatness of the USA and I feel like Allan Bloom wrote that the USA is one of the wonders of the world. I am glad that there is the Union.
