[Borodog]

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Ok, it is not the secession itself that I am saying is immoral. The subsequent founding of another state is what was immoral. Again, if the secessionists dissolved the government entirely, I would have no problem with it.

Your analogy of the gym membership is flawed because the secessionists never asked the citizens of their own state whether they wanted to continue to be a part of the state. Following your analogy, they voluntarily withdrew from the gym, but then forced people to join what they believed to be a better gym.

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Why are you trying so hard to avoid conceding a simple point? This is so far afield of your original claim as to be almost totally unrelated.

Under the theory of government that the state governments were operating on at the time, they *were* the legitimate, duly elected government of their respective states, and they believed that they had every right to rescind participation in the Union and form a different one; that is what they believed their constituents put them there for. Furthermore, they believed they had the duty to, as their states were being plundered, as they had been for decades, by tarrif policies set by northern majorities in the Congress.

This is completely separate from the issue of whether or not it would have been better not to form another union at all.