Something to think about

Was the civil war the first major assault on the constitution of the United States? Joseph Sobran thinks so.

At the time the Constitution was adopted, several states, including Virginia and New York, ratified it on the express condition that they might withdraw from the Union at any time they deemed it in their interest to do so. This was in keeping with the Declaration of Independence, which says that people have both the "right" and the "duty" to "alter or abolish" a government destructive of their rights.

Nobody at the time challenged these states' claim to a right of secession. Not only did the Declaration support them; as a practical matter, nothing could stop them. The federal government was too weak.

Notice the key point in the final paragraph, the federal government was too weak to stop them.
Sobran goes on to point out that the first secessionists were not in the south but in the north.

In fact, the first secessionists were Northern abolitionists who wanted no part of a Union that tolerated slavery. They just didn't acquire enough influence to persuade their fellow Northerners to declare their independence.

Suppose they had. Suppose New England had pulled out of the Union in indignation over slavery. Suppose the remaining states had declared war in order to save the Union, and after a bitter five-year struggle, costing nearly a million lives, New England had been conquered.

What a different country this would be.

Then what? History might record that the victorious Union took a fierce revenge by occupying, looting, and setting up puppet governments in New England for several years; furthermore, that it also amended the Constitution not only to protect slavery in the South, but to extend the right to own slaves to every state and all U.S. territories.

In that case, "saving the Union" might not seem such a wonderful thing. It would have come at the price of saving slavery. The causes of Union and slavery would have been synonymous for later generations.

A more chilling thought is that the Union victory over New England might not only have saved slavery, but conferred moral legitimacy on it. Abolitionism might be associated with those nasty rebels who tried to destroy the Union, and slavery with the cause of patriotism! To the victor belong the spoils - including, to a great extent, the moral sense of the population.

The question arises, how many states would have considered secession after the Supreme Court mandated abortion on demand with Roe VS Wade? More than half one would guess but it was out of the question because the federal government was too powerful. After the 2004 election there was once again talk about secession. It won't happen of course, not because it's not legal but because the powerful federal government would not allow it.

Just something to think about in context of increasing intrusion of the federal government in our daily affairs and the rise to power of Taliban like Christian fundamentalists.