This country was founded on separating ourselves from England. Was George Washington and the rest disloyal traitors to the crown? They also asked and received foreign help in kicking the Brits out.

I forgot to add I would not like to live in a country with only a one party system in which lib/leftwing Democrats call all the shots. This is a system they are trying to achieve by allowing fraudualent voting and fighting against ID voter laws. They think voting fraud will work in their favor and lead to eternal power for them

Yeah, that's working out real well so far, huh?

So nitwit, why DID the south start the "war of northern aggression?" For what other reason besides the perpetuation of slavery?

This oughta be good.

It comes down to the reason for wanting separation. The Founding Fathers set out their reasons in the Declaration of Independence. They were indeed disloyal traitors, but they felt they had no choice, given England's violations of their rights.

South Carolina invoked the principle of the Declaration of Independence, asserting its right to secede. The reason was the failure of the other States to uphold slavery by returning escaped slaves to their masters, as provided in the Constitution, and the expectation that slavery would be banned throughout the US, again in violation of the Constitution.

Were they wrong to secede? In the American Revolution, the States fought to establish and maintain the rights of men. In the Civil War, the Confederacy fought to sustain the institution of slavery.

The American Colonies never joined the British empire of its own volition. The people were never consulted and their loyalty was merely assumed for King and Country. Once they had grown beyond the need for British tutelage [to whom we should be grateful] the American founders had some rather bright ideas of their own and had a [gasp!] successful, net-positive revolution. The South willingly signed on to the creation of the United States and they did not have right to arbitrarily dissolve the country [which would affect the North, especially if they had sought the help of then-hostile European powers] because Northerners and Free Soilers in newly-acquired territories didn't quite have the Southern slaveholder class's zeal for the extension of slavery.

Abrogation of the Northwest Compromise, Missouri Compromise, Fugitive Slave Law [essentially meant that there was no such thing as a "Free" state], Dred Scot Decision [ditto], 3/5 Compromise ["Oh yeah, count most of a black person so we can increase our representation in Congress, but, you know, they're not actual people with citizenship rights..."]- all Northern concessions to Southern slaveholders. It wasn't enough to assuage your massive inferiority complex- the mixture of oligarchy, feudalism and mercantilism failed to produce the wealth your Northern neighbors enjoyed. And, while a more temperate and wise position would have been to liberalize your economy and phase out slavery over the course of a decade or so, the denizens of The Palmetto State started the war with eventually took over 623,000 lives.

And not content with that- some of you have the nerve to be angry at the Northern states, who resuscitated the war torn society you helped ruin, and fly not even the national symbol of The Confederacy [which was the Stars and Bars], but the battle flag of a treasonous and seditious lot who caused the greatest calamity in US history. The flag would be an insult even if the South had freed all its slaves and then fired on Fort Sumter. The cheek of the thing. If I may borrow a Southern expression: "Don't piss down my leg and tell me it's raining."

ProudInfidel:

This country was founded on separating ourselves from England. Was George Washington and the rest disloyal traitors to the crown? They also asked and received foreign help in kicking the Brits out.

Sometimes rebellion is the only answer but how can you defend a rebellion based on wanting to keep human beings as property?

Geoff7:

The American Colonies never joined the British empire of its own volition. The people were never consulted and their loyalty was merely assumed for King and Country.

The American colonies were formed on land acquired by Great Britain, the colonies were created by charters granted by the British government which in every case acknowledged British sovereignity, and the European inhabitants of the colonies immigrated here under the aegis of British colonial governance. So suggesting that we just decided that Britain was no longer relevant and weren't in fact treasonous rebels is wishful thinking. Even our founding father recognized they were engaged in acts that would be considered treasonous once they adopted the Declaration of Independence.

The southern states that left the union contended they had a right to unilaterally withdraw from the union, a right that was uncertain and unrecognized by the Union, but was at least arguable. By contrast, our fathers in Philadelphia appealed to "God" and the "laws of nature" in the Declaration precisely because they had no basis for secession under law, and knew it.

Now I'm not suggesting that the Southern secession movement was the moral equivalent of the American Revolution; quite the contrary, as the primary purpose of the movement, at least from the persepctive of the southern elites, was to preserve the slave economy, including both slave ownership and favorable tariff laws. However, the southern states had a far more arguable legal case for their actions than did the original colonies, which had none whatsoever.

Separation issues can only be settled by force or by negotiated agreement. The South neither won its case by force nor did they get an agreement.

The fact is that the South took Federal property when it left; ports, bases, munitions, troops, and the like. What about that property? Also it left stranded many people who wished to remain citizens of the United States: what about their rights? Why was the rest of the United States obliged to stand idly by while Federal property was being stolen and protesting citizens were being deprived of their rights?

It's just like a divorce: you don't have a right to just arbitrarily walk out of a marriage and take whatever stuff you think is yours.