When in the Carolinas, with kinfolk or friends, and the whole states' rights verses slavery argument comes up, I roll my eyes, bite my tongue, put a hole in my lip. Manners, and all. When I do speak it is simply to ask who has read the South Carolina Articles* of Succession, how recently, and if they would like to calmly discuss both the blatant and subtle arguments it includes.

I reread it just after Nikki's fumble on the easy handoff. Has she read it? How recently? Would she like to calmly discuss both the blatant and subtle arguments it includes?

"It was about South Carolina's right to own slaves and require Northern states to return slaves when they escaped to abolitionist states." That's it in a nutshell, Nikki.

Certainly, it makes a bunch of Constitutional arguments, which, apparently, they didn't want to sign in the first place. The Carolinas suffered and fought like hell during the Revolutionary War, in many ways they turned the tide against the British. They always wanted to be their own country.

*Correction: Called the "Ordinance of Secession."