The recent (Dec. 20) sesquicentennial of the 1860 secession of South Carolina recalls how the rebellion did not come so quick or so easy in Tennessee—largely because of the Unionist preference in Knoxville and environs.

As Confederate widow Parthenia Leila Ellis recalls in the novel: “Tennessee had finally seceded, in June, 1861, though it took two elections and several months in between for the Secesh to finally put it over.”

South Carolina’s secession, though slotted post-war in a righteous States Rights template, clearly was a matter of slavery, and there was too little Negro bondage in East Tennessee to encourage the white populace to unite around its preservation.

Via Instapundit, who offers ample evidence that, for at least the past seven years, the idea of secession has had its continuing attractions for American political advocates of the Left and the Right.