To add to this, many Americans seem to view the goal of preserving the Union as self-evidently noble. I disagree. Self-government is an inalienable right of free people. The Union didn't just forcibly end slavery in the South, which would've been noble enough. They conquered the South and ruled it. What gave the Union the right to impose laws on the South that had nothing to do with human rights?

Governance without the consent of the governed is illegitimate.