The Confederate States of America was a sovereign nation. There was no rebellion, but rather an invasion by armies sent by the Lincoln regime. He thought 75,000 yankee invaders would defeat a small Southern army in Northern Virginia in a matter of weeks or months. But hey, 4 years and 700,000 lives plus un-quantifiable hardship and suffering of Americans for decades was not too high a price for "preserving the Union". George Washington and the other Founding Fathers would have been horrified and disgusted with The Great Centralizer, Lincoln and rightfully so.