Reply #81: Lincoln, who was a lawyer before he was President, thought secession was treason, with very good

[No Elephants]

reason. And I dispute your claim as to what the original ratification debates "assumed." It may have been left out of the Constitution intentionally because opinions on the issue were deeply divided. That does not mean that everyone "assumed" a right to secession. That would have been bizarre, given that the predecessor to the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, spoke of a PERPETUAL union.

Texas is a special case, because of the specific conditions on which it became a state, so Texas's situation did not apply to the other Confederate states.

Revisionism on that issue has run rampant, especially among Southerners and RWers everywhere, much like revisionism has run rampant about the relationship between slavery and the Civil War.