[4CJ]

What he's arguing is that the federal government has the power to prohibit state actions retroactively. The is a clause in the Constitution ['No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed'] prohibiting such.

[#3Fan]

What he's arguing is that the federal government has the power to prohibit state actions retroactively. The is a clause in the Constitution ['No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed'] prohibiting such.

No, "pre" is a prefix that means "before". When the states wanted to seceded, they should have allowed the Congress to prescribe the way in that the seceding states would have proven their secession.

[Gianni]

What he's arguing is that the federal government has the power to prohibit state actions retroactively.

What he's arguing gets points for originality, but not much else. Usually a proof by non-existence is sufficient to convince most people that nothing in Article IV could possilby be pertinent. That's all to say: Chase's use of the preamble in conjunction with the defunct and discarded Articles is proof positive of how hard he dug to look for a Constitutional means of declaring secession illegal.

Chase came up empty. Article IV is immaterial to the matter.