Do you believe that the southern states had the right to secede?

Answer 1

The Southern States thought so and the North disagreed. That is what they fought a Civil War about.
The North winning does not prove anything about secession. The Constitution doesn't explicitly document secession as a right and no amendment following the War for Southern Independence expressly prohibits it. So there is debate and many state, such as Texas, Alabama, and Vermont often discuss the topic and have considered seceding.

Many scholars would say, the South did have the right to secede and many states are currently reviewing amendments to their state constitutions that would allow them to secede should marshal law be declared by the Federal government.
Why the south left varies from person to person, but it really depends on how you look at it. The south saw slavery as a economic necessity, while the North saw it as a sin. It is reasoned that the North and South could not function as two different nations because they depended on each other economically. But the main issue of why the south seceded is whether slavery should be abolished or not.

Answer 2

Up until 1860, no one doubted that a state which wanted to get out of the Union was free to do so. It had taken a voluntary act by each of the states to become a part of the Union, so wouldn't the state's people have the right to leave, if they felt being part of the Union no longer met their needs?

The Constitution is silent on the question. The Constitution says merely that it would take effect once it was ratified and accepted as the defining document, the organic law, of the new national government, by nine of the then existing thirteen states.

But everyone knew that OF COURSE you could get out of it if you wanted to.

1860 was not the first time the question of secession had come up. The New England states and New York talked about it in the 1790s. A few years later the people of the trans-Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio were discussing the possibility, over inaction by the Federal government on the issue of Spanish control of their trade, since Spain at that time was controlling New Orleans.

The people of the New England states in the northeast were bitterly opposed to the War of 1812, and grew rich carrying on a treasonable trade with the enemy (since adding to the wealth they had amassed in the slave trade was illegal after 1808), supplying the British armies in America with food and horses and other items. Without this Yankee assistance the British would have been unable to maintain their forces in America. New England was so outraged over this inconvenient war and its disruption of their commerce that they went so far as to call a Secession Convention at Hartford, Connecticut in 1815 to take their states out of the Union. By the time to Convention met the war had ended, so the idea was dropped.

Then there's the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution, which embody the idea that the new Federal government has only those powers explicitly given to it under the Constitution, and not one bit more, and that all other powers remain with the states. Those Amendments are still right there, part of the original Bill of Rights, which many states insisted on before they would ratify the Constitution. Its just that those Amendments don't mean too much since 1865.

In that sense, it was Lincoln who was the real Revolutionary. He wanted to change the rules, and did so successfully, even if at gunpoint.

Answer 3

Under the Articles of Confederation they would have, but the Constitution had replaced them.

Not according to the Constitution.

I think that the Constitutional amendment which forbids US states from seceding was not ratified until after the war, which would mean that the Confedederacy did not violate the US Constitution. It did, however, fire the first shots of the war, and it refused to free the slaves; thus giving the Northern states the moral high ground.

No. Asking this question over a 100 years later only gives a modern perspective on the issue. The basic issue involved was states rights and if federal law superceded state law. According to the constitution it does, so if you look at the issue through that framework the 12 states didn't have the right to secede from the Union. Lincoln took the position that a nation divided can't remain a nation and that he had to fight to keep it together.

Answer 4

People who dig gold and silver work in

Answer 5

Yes