On the Common Held Notion that Secession Equates to Treason - Continued

Additional contrary evidence - a) "The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality; nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of those states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.............b) To expect to hold fifteen States in the Union by force is preposterous. The idea of a civil war, accompanied, by a servile insurrection, is too monstrous to be entertained for a moment." Edward Everett, 1860.............c) "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." Maryland Congressman, Jacob M. Kunkel, 1860.............d) On three distinct occasions in the early 19th Century (in response to the Louisiana Purchase, the embargo with England, and the War of 1812), the six New England states also strongly considered secession and at no point was this ever considered by the rest of the nation as treasonous. Ditto with New York City and the five Middle Atlantic states who for a while favored a Central Confederacy.............e) According to historian, Howard Cecil Perkins, a significant majority of the NORTHERN newspapers were strongly opposed to using military force against any state that might secede. Amongst these newspapers were the Chicago Daily Times, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Cincinnati Daily Press, the New York Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the New York Times, the Hartford Daily Courant, the Providence Evening Press, the Concord Democratic Standard, the Bangor Daily Union, and the Albany Atlas and Argus.............f) For quite a long time, William Lloyd Garrison was actually in favor of NORTHERN secession. And his rationale for it was absolutely brilliant. His specific theory was that if the two regions separated and formed two distinct confederacies, the Fugitive Slave Law, which had literally been sending thousands of runaway slaves back into servitude, would at that point become null and void and institution would atrophy even faster than it had been....Kinda too bad that he hadn't been the President, huh?