The fallacy of Douglass argument is revealed by these words of Lincoln:
“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is the right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any such portion may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with or near about them, who may oppose this movement. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break up both and make new ones.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is the right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any such portion may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with or near about them, who may oppose this movement. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break up both and make new ones.” – Abraham Lincoln

Which is pretty much what happened.

You have a right to get a divorce too — but you dont have a right to shoot or threaten your wife.

You have a right to get your money out of the bank – but you don't have the right to break in and take it in the middle of the night at gun point.

If the South wanted to secede — let it do so by the Constitution – as Lincoln said. Why on earth have you not answered Lincon's – or this – point? Secede all you want, have a party. Go for it. But seceding legally is one thing. Attacking US troops cause you lost an election is another.

Notice how you lunatics onlly talk about the right to secede. Go ahead and secede already — shut up and do it. But you wont do it by force this time. Guess why? Lincoln taught you otherwise.

If you don't think Lincoln's election triggered secession, then you are a complete idiot. Go read the Declarations of Causes – most of them mentioned Lincoln by name, and saying his election made it clear they had to secede.

In fact, why the heck havent you read them already? Here is just ONE quote from Florida Declaration of Causes.

"A President has recently been elected (Lincoln) , an obscure and illiterate man without experience who often proclaims that no more slave States shall be admitted into the union. If no more states are admitted, then the present slaves from their rapid increase in birth will become worthless to their owners. Nothing is more certain than this –and at no distant day.

"No more slave states admitted ? What must be the condition of the slaves themselves when their number becomes so large that their labor will be of no value to their owners? The black race has a natural tendency to idleness vagrancy and crime, which will be increased by an inability to procure subsistence, if they become worthless as slaves.

[stopping slavery from expanding] is in so many words saying we will not burn you at the stake but we will torture you to death by a slow fire. It is saying we will not confiscate your property and consign you to a residence and equality with the african, but that destiny certainly awaits your children. "

Here is another Tennessee governor advising the people to secede

"The antislavery party is the enemy of the Union and the Constitution, advocating the equality of the negro and the white races and the abolition of slavery. To accomplish this the antislavery party has been organized and now constitutes the dominant party in all the free States. And now, having [won the election] it is attempting by conquest and coercion to carry out its damnable heresies [of equality of races] entertained for many vears toward the South and its institutions.
That we will resist Lincolns usurpation unto death; that, we have no compromise with tyranny or with the tyrant who has trampled our Constitution and now seeks to enslave us "

So yes– Lincoln's election was the trigger for these lunatics to secede. It wasn't anything Lincoln DID – he wasnt even in yet. And it wasnt logically anything he said — he had bent over backwards for years not to piss off these lunatics.

Oh – and if you are going by this logic "when form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government"

Why didn't then the SLAVES have a right to alter or abolish the government of any slave state? The form of goverment was certainly destructive to THEIR end. Notice how the lunatic south treated any people who dared to have armed rebellion against them — hanging for the lucky ones — burning to death in front of their family for the unlucky ones.

So spare me this nonsense about Southern concerns for rule of law. They were by definition for the rule of force. Anything else is nonsense.

Enough pretending — 150 years of Southern whinning and lying is enough.

The Constitution goes great lengths to attempt to reserve all undelegated rights to the states and remove all undelegated rights from the federal government. Even now, this reserves the legal right to seceed for any state and denies the legal right to invade any state from the federal government.

Like any lawyer, Mr. Lincoln's interpretations of Constitutional law were intentionally flawed and incomplete to meet his ends. The conequenses of his actions speak for themselves. We may regret that the end of slavery could not have been accomplished in his lifetime without the sacrifice of so many hundreds of thousands. Still, we cannot give credence to these inane ramblings by labeling them an enlightened interpretation of Contitutional Law.