Originally posted by lazs2
The articles of confederation are not talking about sucession... they are talking about insurection.
The insurrection clause I site is in the Constitution, as that was the document in question in 1860.
The Constitution replaced the weaker government of the Articles of Confederation with a stronger Constitutional government in 1787.
As Mississippi said, in addition to "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--", the also say,
The hostility to this institution (slavery) commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.
So even the south realised that the cause of "unconstitutional behavior" was hostility to slavery, and due to this hostility to slavery, they committed insurrection by an organized opposition to an established authority, the Union of which they were still a part.
The organized opposition came in the form of voting for seccesion from a Union they percieved as opposing slavery.
The root cause analysis was one side opposed slavery and the other side wanted to keep it.