Agreed, the republicans and democrats have "evolved" [or devolved depending on your preferences] far from the founders, thus proving my point. Lincoln in his day, trump today are far more big government than the founders ever intended.
There are really two competing values at work here, I believe, viz.: (1) Should states be required to remain in the union, if they wish otherwise? To which I would answer: Emphatically not! However, (2) Should some people be allowed to "own" other people? The answer, again, is an emphatic no! I think the fancy term for this is "cognitive dissonance"...
Your knowledge of this subject is pathetic. The States have always had the RIGHT to secede from the United States as it was a voluntary union. NO WHERE in the Constitution is the Federal Government given ownership of the States. In fact the first serious threat of secession came from New England, not the South. In 1814, delegates from the New England states gathered at the Hartford Convention. The right to secession is ingrained in our countries history and was the founding principal outlined in the Declaration of Independence. So why don't you stow your idiotic talk about traitors, because if anyone were traitors it was Lincoln and the cabal of industrialists who destroyed States rights and started us on the road to tyranny where today our Bill of Rights is not worth the paper it is written on. "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government",
And France congratulated him for destroying the republic with a copper statue they finished in twenty years. If I could find the quote, I'd post it. I've posted it before. The words on that plaque are from a French writer, not a leader of the Constitutional republic. I think the statue and plaque should be removed and sent back to France. I think it should be replaced with a symbol of the little folks breaking the bonds of the tyranny of a government that disallowed liberty and had a caste system underpinning socialism. YMMV on what goes back on the base.
Yes or no, do you really think the Statue of Liberty is going to be returned? Stop being a little child about this.
Try reading the Declaration of Independence, and come back when know the difference between your backside and a hole in the ground.