“Democracy” isn’t a one-dimensional issue. How you make decisions (majority vote) is one dimension. But who makes the decision—what group does the voting and is bound by the results of voting—is another dimension. Many countries balance these issues by having different levels of voting. Distinct communities wishing to govern themselves is a nearly universal phenomenon. My country exists because we didn’t want to be in a body politic with Pakistanis. It was our right to decide we should have our own government where we, and not they, voted on the laws that governed us. Dismissively comparing all such impulses to the Civil War is intellectually lazy.

Self determination is a widely recognized political right. If folks in Alabama don’t want folks in California to have a say in their affairs, they have that right. That must be balanced against other practicalities of course. But letting different groups govern themselves is conceptually part of “democracy” just as much as “one person one vote.”