Not a gotcha question: what is your definition of treason? I believe the term was in play at the time of the Civil War, rather than being a contemporary rear-projection.
Oh, I don't for a moment doubt treason was discussed all the time in the Civil War. I didn't mean to suggest it's a modern revision of history. On the contrary, I'm sure the feelings and language today are 150 times milder (though stronger, I think, than ten years ago).
Merriam-Webster tells me "treason" is defined thus:
the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family.
Under this definition, I think it's arguable if either the Confederacy or the emerging US committed treason. Neither sought to completely overthrow the parent government. The US wasn't trying to overthrow Britain; the South wasn't trying to take over the entire United States. Is it "overthrowing your government" to break away from it, make its sphere of influence smaller? One could argue yes; it takes away that government's land, resources, etc. But again, I don't see a huge conceptual difference between the South and the American colonies on that score. One could argue the South had more of a hand in creating the US than the American colonies did in deciding how the British administered them and, therefore, had more responsibility to stay, but I'm not sure where that reasoning takes us. If, for example, you helped design the Soviet Union and then decided it had become corrupt and you wanted your state to secede, are you ethically barred from ever doing so because you helped create the original government?
(Oh, and I see I had some slippage between "treason" and "unethical." It's a whole other question if treason can ever be ethical. To take the other part of the definition just as a "for instance," in Game of Thrones, Jaime kills his king, which is clearly treason, but he also does so stop the king from killing many other people, so is that ethical? Could be.)
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Oh, I don't for a moment doubt treason was discussed all the time in the Civil War. I didn't mean to suggest it's a modern revision of history. On the contrary, I'm sure the feelings and language today are 150 times milder (though stronger, I think, than ten years ago).
Merriam-Webster tells me "treason" is defined thus:
the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family.
Under this definition, I think it's arguable if either the Confederacy or the emerging US committed treason. Neither sought to completely overthrow the parent government. The US wasn't trying to overthrow Britain; the South wasn't trying to take over the entire United States. Is it "overthrowing your government" to break away from it, make its sphere of influence smaller? One could argue yes; it takes away that government's land, resources, etc. But again, I don't see a huge conceptual difference between the South and the American colonies on that score. One could argue the South had more of a hand in creating the US than the American colonies did in deciding how the British administered them and, therefore, had more responsibility to stay, but I'm not sure where that reasoning takes us. If, for example, you helped design the Soviet Union and then decided it had become corrupt and you wanted your state to secede, are you ethically barred from ever doing so because you helped create the original government?
(Oh, and I see I had some slippage between "treason" and "unethical." It's a whole other question if treason can ever be ethical. To take the other part of the definition just as a "for instance," in Game of Thrones, Jaime kills his king, which is clearly treason, but he also does so stop the king from killing many other people, so is that ethical? Could be.)