"Thats all fine and dandy...but are you willing to count the cost of going to war if the other side disagree's?"

What is the price of freedom and self determination worth? Some people say it is priceless and others say it is not.

On the other side of your question is the freeing of the slaves. To the abolishionist, such as John Brown, it was worth the lives of 620,000 men and maybe 3,000,000 other civilian casualities. Their intent was to start a war and no effort to find a peaceful settlement was good enough for them.

Was freeing the slaves worth going to war over?

Was going to war with Germany and Japan in 1941 worth the price we paid to free Europe and the South Pacific? Has any other war we have been engaged in up to and including the present war been worth the price we pay.

Is it better that a man died so that another can have freedom? Or is it better that a man remain in bondage so that another can keep his life? Which is the nobler purpose? This is a double edged sword.

Freedom never comes without a cost. Never has in history and never will. If it can be obtained without warfare so much the better. I can not think of one time in history were freedom was given without the use of force. So, we had better always be prepared to fight for freedom if we want it. It is not going to be given to us by those who want to oppress us.

In the case of the South, that determination was not made by anyone else but Abraham Lincoln. The South did not wage a war of aggression against the Northern states. It was the United States that threatened the South, invaded the south, and blockaded its ports of trade. All this was done in order to force the southern states back into a union that they no longer wished to be a part of. That is oppression.

And no matter now gentle and non threatening the oppression is, is it still oppression. Ropes made of the finest velvet fabric are still ropes. The Northerner would say that no matter how kind and gentle and fatherly the plantation owner was to his slaves, he was still the master, and the slave still the slave? The same applies to a government which suppresses the peoples will also.

My Grandfathers in 1860 did not own any slaves, nor can I find any indication that they care to. But they volunteered for the South in 1861, to defend their homes and for the freedom to decide matters as they saw fit. I can not fault their decisions, I can not find where they were wrong under the laws of the time in the United States, and I would have probably done the same.

War is never pretty. and the cost thereof are a human waste. But unfortunately it is always the possible end result of any disagreement of politics between two or more sides.

And if I had to fight for anything that I would deem to be worth that cost it would be first and foremost my personal freedom and the freedom of my family. For what is life worth without freedom? Fighting for someone elses freedom I would have to think about. To me that is their responcibility if they want it.

Finally, you said "Right to rebel or not, you had better be STRONG enough to do so"

Ever hear of a place called Valley Forge?

The South was far stronger in comparison that the American Army was during the Revolution and far more evenly matched than was the Americans were against the English. I guess we shouldn't have fought the American Revolution by this standard of being "strong enough to do so". By the way I had a gggrandfather who was deported for being a Troy captain of Loyalist South Carolina Militia after that war.