Litigating Secession

Chris Matthews is up in arms (heh) over the celebration in South Carolina on the anniversary of that state’s secession from the Union 150 years ago. I’m not sure I think that such a celebration is a good idea, but I certainly don’t agree with Eugene Robinson when Chris Matthews asked him what he thought on Monday's Hardball, other than secession not being a good thing,

No, it wasn‘t a good thing. And it was—it was an illegal act and the illegality of that act was, in fact, litigated by the Civil War. You know, this was—this was not something to celebrate. It would be like celebrating some big terrorist attack or something like that, which in fact there was 150 years ago. There was a terrorist attack against Fort Sumter that began the civil war.

Now, I’m glad the South lost the war. They were fighting to preserve something that was wrong on every level, something that should not, could not be preserved. The North was fighting to preserve a great nation which, whatever its present faults, is very much worth preservation.

That being said, Eugene Robinson is beyond disgusting. If the Americans had lost the War of Revolution some person with a British accent would be sitting in his seat, with the same self-satisfied smug look on his face, saying that the Declaration of Independence was an “illegal act” and comparing the battles of Lexington and Concord to terrorist attacks.

People do what they believe to be right and defend that which is important to them, risking life and worldly goods to do so. Right or wrong, doing so takes great courage and strength, and in many cases the worthiness of their cause turns out to be judged by force of arms. The winner on the field of battle writes history. We judge these people because we view them through the lens of history, and we call them terrorists if they lose.

The American colonists were right because we won that war. The North was right because it won that war. The South was wrong because it lost that war, and Robinson said so himself, “the illegality of that act was, in fact, litigated by the Civil War.” So, secession would be legal had force of arms determined it to be legal?

Has the field of battle replaced our Supreme Court, Eugene?