Jim,

"Could you teach without fear of being ridiculed or ostracized by your professional counterparts, that the South was Constitutionally justified or had a superior argument to the Northern position of an indivisible Union?"

That is kind of a hard question to answer, because that approach to the topic is not really something most history professors or history classes (at least in my experience) really take. Generally, classes cover what the Northern position was and what the Southern position was, NOT which was "right." Such legal analysis of the Constitution might be found more often in a political science class. Perhaps some history professors get into arguing which side had the "superior argument" in their classes, but I've never seen it.

Now, I have seen students and professors express their own personal views on the subject (they weren't "teaching" it as such). One graduate student was particularly vehement in his defense of secession in some discussions. And one professor I know, the same I mentioned in another post who is a member of the SCV, also held some very sympathetic views towards the Confederacy. No one really thought much about it and it certainly did not affect either of their standings in the department.

As for recognized academic who takes a blatantly "pro-Southern" approach (if one wants to call it that), I think Dr. Clyde Wilson may be the most notable. He teaches at the University of South Carolina: http://www.cas.sc.edu/hist/facultyprofiles/wilsonc.html

I've never met Dr. Wilson. But his reputation comes more from his association with public "Southern heritage" groups rather than from his purely academic work. According to Wikipedia (which, as we all know, is not always accurate), Wilson was a founder of the League of the South. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_N._Wilson) As far as I know, his job is safe.