Yes they did exist. The first step was to allow the Congress to prescribe the general rules for the South to prove their secession. The South refused to follow this first step.
[#3Fan] I accept your concession that there was nothing inherently illegal about an act of secession.
What concession? If I never said that secession was illegal, there's nothing to concede.
Something is not illegal unless there is a law against it. You have just conceded such law did not exist.
Article IV, Section 1 did exist and it said the Congress would decide how the South would prove their secession. The South refused to follow this rule.
Actually, orders to violate the existing armistice were issued within 8 days of Lincoln's inauguration.
Sumter was fired upon, there's no getting around that.
March 12, 1861 To Captain I. Vogdes First Artillery, U.S. Army [in USS Brooklyn] "At the first opportunity, you will land your company, reinforce Fort Pickens, and hold the same till further orders, etc." [This order was received by Capt. Vogdes on March 31, 1861] LINK U. S. TRANSPORT ATLANTIC, [New York,] April 6, 1861 -- 2k p. m. Hon. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State: DEAR SIR: By great exertions, within less than six days from the time the subject was broached in the office of the President, a war steamer sails from this port; and the Atlantic, built under contract to be at the service of the United States in case of war, will follow this afternoon with 500 troops, of which one company is sappers and miners, one a mounted battery. The Illinois...
Woo hoo!
...will follow on Monday with the stores which the Atlantic could not hold. While the mere throwing of a few men into Fort Pickens may seem a small operation, the opening of a campaign is a great one. Unless this movement is supported by ample supplies and followed up by the Navy it will be a failure. This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession. You will find the Army and the Navy clogged at the head with men, excellent patriotic men, men who were soldiers and sailors forty years ago, but who now merely keep active men out of the places in which they could serve the country. If you call out volunteers you have no general to command. The general born, not made, is yet to be found who is to govern the great army which is to save the country, if saved it can be. Colonel Keyes has shown intelligence, zeal, activity, and I look for a high future for him. England took six months to get a soldier to the Crimea. We were from May to September in getting General Taylor before Monterey. Let us be supported; we go to serve our country, and our country should not neglect us or leave us to be strangled in tape, however red. Respectfully, M. C. MEIGS.
It was federal property. We could do as we wished.
Actually, it says no such thing. It still says what it has always said. The part about "Congress would decide how the South would prove their secession" is still AWOL.
U.S. Const, Art 4, Sec 1, Cl 1: Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.
U.S. Const, Art 4, Sec 1, Cl 2: And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
If one were to actually try to apply the law in such manner as you construe, the State would secede and, having seceded and no longer being a member of the United States, would then ask the United States Congress to prescribe the manner in which their act of secession shall be proved.
Article 4, Sec 1, The Full Faith and Credit Clause, "empowers Congress to regulate the manner in which the laws of one state shall be recognized in another."
FULL FAITH AND CREDITBeyond court proceedings, the clause says that "public acts" shall be entitled to full faith and credit, but the Court has not read this provision strictly. The Court relied on a loose reading in DRED SCOTT V. SANDFORD to avoid giving Dred Scott his freedom. Scott had argued that because he had moved to a free state he had gained freedom, which he could not lose upon returning to a slave state. The Court said that "no state... can enact laws to operate beyond its own dominions." But the Court's absolute pronouncement has been somewhat eroded by the development of a CHOICE OF LAW jurisprudence that sometimes requires one state to follow the law of another. A prime example is the Court's century-old conclusion that a contract must ordinarily be interpreted by the law of the state where it was made, not in the state where a lawsuit is brought. But the rule is fraught with many exceptions; for example, the forum state need not abide by the rule of the contract state to award interest on a judgment.
The Full Faith and Credit Clause empowers Congress to regulate the manner in which the laws of one state shall be recognized in another. In doing so, Congress has commanded federal courts to be bound by the same general rules, and the Court has upheld the constitutionality of this law. Under the Supremacy Clause, the reverse also holds true. State courts must respect the laws and judgments not merely of sister states, but of the federal government as well.
SOURCE: A Practical Companion to the Constitution, How the Supreme Court Has Ruled on Issues from Abortion to Zoning, Jethro K. Lieberman, University off California Press, 1999, p. 209
[nc] Actually, orders to violate the existing armistice were issued within 8 days of Lincoln's inauguration.
[#3Fan] Sumter was fired upon, there's no getting around that.
The Lincoln administration ordered a violation of an existing armistice, to which the United States Government was a party, and did so on March 12, 1861, a month before Sumter was fired upon, and there's no getting around that.
Lincoln knew full well about the armistice, and undeniably so after Captain Adams correctly refused to comply with the unlawful orders shown to him by Captain Vogdes.
April 1, 1861
To Captain H.A. Adams
Commanding Naval Forces off Pensacola
Herewith I send you a copy of an order received by me last night. You will see by it that I am directed to land my command at the earliest opportunity. I have therefore to request that you will place at my disposal such boats and other means as will enable me to carry into effect the enclosed order.
Signed: I. Vogdes, Capt. 1st Artly. Comdg.
[#3Fan] It was federal property. We could do as we wished.
There was an armistice in effect and on March 12, 1861 orders were issued to violate the armistice.