The Militia Act of 1792 as amended in 1795 precludes unilateral state secession. But think about this:
"State ordinances of secession had no legal effect on the legal foundations of the United States federal government; the Supremacy Clause is a general bar on State law impacting federal institutions. To vindicate the authority of the Confederacy, the Confederates had to resort to violent assaults on federal authority, [if this only involved refusal to allow the mail to pass] and that constituted, quite unambiguously, insurrection or rebellion. The need to rebel, was not the result of some obdurate refusal by the Lincoln administration to recognize the constitutional legitimacy of the secessions, as Jefferson Davis would have it. The constitutional impotence of the secessions was in the explicit logic of the Constitution -- in the Supremacy Clause. Lincoln had only to observe his clear Constitutional duties, and the legal impotence of State secession would be revealed -- was revealed."
-- Gary Charbonneau
Walt
Gary Charbonneau of the Indiana University Libraries? Or Supreme Court Justice Gary Charbonneau, or President Gary Charbonneau? Or founding father Gary Charbonneau?
Congress had refused to find fault in the seceded states actions. The Supremacy clause does not apply to the PEOPLE of the several states, only to the officers. The people are sovereign, and can change their form of government at will (see the Texas Constitution as admitted to the Union).
This is, of course, still a legal impossibility.
If secession were unconstitutional, neither the militia act nor any other federal act would make it any more unconstitutional.
If secession were not unconstitutional, neither the militia act nor any other federal act could make it unconstitutional.
Nothing in the Militia Act is relevant. The Militia Act of 1792 was not amended. It was repealed as explicitly stated in the legislation of 1795.