The Sesquicentennial Is Upon Us

...But first I think it’s important to remember that the secession that took place 150 years ago was in a grand old American tradition. The American “Revolution” was, in fact, a war of secession – 13 colonies breaking away from the British Empire – not a war of conquest, and most of the Founding Fathers understood that to be a given right when they created the Articles and then the Constitution. The creation of the Republic of Vermont in 1777 was another act of secession, from both New Hampshire and New York. And just 25 years after the new nation was born, representatives from all New England states (only one from Vermont) met at a convention in Hartford to consider secession from the United States if their grievances against President Madison’s conduct of the war of 1812 and limitations on Atlantic trade were not satisfied; in the event, they did not vote for secession, but its spirit was in the air. So in that context, let’s make clear that what began 150 years ago this April was not a true civil war, except in the sense that there were two sides in one country, because there was no attempt by one side to take over the other, as in the more familiar English civil war between Parliament and Charles I. The South did not want to run the Union, it wanted out of the Union. That makes it a war of secession