It was also a criminal act to use force against the states; Madison rejected granting the Federal government that power in the Constitution when it was proposed by one of the Federalist factions. The Union was to be voluntary re original intent. It was in fact northern states who routinely threatened 'secession' over the first 30 or so years of the Union, due to what they perceived as the state of Virginia's and the South's political power and outsized influence in the Federal govt.
that was the good ole' days when the fastest communication was via pony express and--------dit dit dit dash....dit dit. We can't act like that anymore------the nation has
become ONE----thru the magic of skywriting and hovering drones
Actually it 'flew' because of massive immigration, most foreigners being ignorant of American geography and the Constitution itself, not to mention the Republicans running lying to them about having to compete with blacks for jobs and the like; they ran on a white nationalist ticket that promised to keep all blacks in the South and out of the new territories, slave and free alike. Having organized a private army and seizing control of the ballot boxes in the border states is what kept Lincoln in power during the mid-term elections in 1862 and again in his elections of 1864. We know what he wanted, as we have the history of the Congressional Record as evidence; he wanted massive subsidies for railroads, and he wanted to tax the South to pay for all of it, and he wanted high tariffs to protect all those 'laissez faire' types in northern industries and banking from competition; not a peep about 'slavery n stuff' until 1863, and even then not much to brag about.