[Non-Sequitur]

Because Lincoln applied the test of whether the United States courts and postal service were continuing to operate.

"Whereas, for the reasons assigned in my proclamation of the 19th instant, a blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, was ordered to be established; and, whereas, since that date public property of the United States has been seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly commissioned officers of the United States, while engaged in executing the orders of their superiors, have been arrested and held in custody as prisoners, or have been impeded in the discharge of their official duties without due legal process by persons claiming to act under authority of the States of Virginia and North Carolina, an efficient blockade of the ports of those States will therefore also be established."

Sounds like a bit more than that to me.

[lentulusgracchus]

I'm recalling language from the thread that #3Fascist got pulled......in our discussion of the cases of NC and Va., and those two institutions figured prominently. I looked for the language in the Constitution and didn't find it, so I suspect it was a quotation from the Militia Act.

Still looking for documentation on that, came up dry last night.

[lentulusgracchus]

Meanwhile, in your reading lounge while you wait on me, have you met Mr. Ostrowski?

"An Analysis Of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession" (1995).

For your further amusement, there was also this 1881 discussion of secession by a thoroughgoing Unionist apologist:

Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers (1881), Published: New York: Maynard, Merrill, and Co., 1899. First published: 1881