(08-14-2017, 06:59 PM)Byron LeftTown Wrote: How is it treason to wish to rid yourself of an abusive partner?  The Confederates just wanted to govern themselves rather than get dictates from the north.

Did you know there was a very strong and vocal secessionist movement in Massachusetts in the early 1800s?  The high-brow city and town folks in New England hated the Virginians and they had a serious fit when the Louisiana Purchase happened in 1803.  Nobody ever made the case these states could not secede if they wanted to.  What doomed the New England secessionist movement were their own U.S. Senators, who betrayed their state legislatures.  The Senators didn't want to be leaders in the proposed much smaller country, they wanted prominent positions in the expanding American empire.