Federaist #47 takes on secession, as disunion, but from an oblique angle. Billthedrill and I posted Federalist #40 today, and we're a few weeks away from tackling #46 and #47.
To jump the gun a little, it depends on whether the Constitution is a treaty or a contract. In Federalist #47, I'll be posting a matrix spreadsheet showing how Treaty People viewed various aspects of the Founding Documents versus Contract People. (If anyone knows how to post a table in HTML, I'd appreciate some advice.)
In short, Treaty People treated secession as a unilateral right. Contract People believed that the other parties to the contract needed to approve the secession. Both parties disagreed on how that contract, the Union, had been created, which we will show in the matrix.
Lincoln, a Contract Person, stated that the Southern states could leave, but only if three-fourths of the states approved. He got that figure from Article V, which pertains to the amendatory process, so Lincoln's thinking there is a little flaky.
John Calhoun, a Treaty Person, had earlier stated that if two-thirds of the states nullified a federal law, it was repealed, but he also got that number from a different clause in Article V, which pertains to the amendatory process, not the legislative process. Thus, Calhoun's thinking on the subject was a bit flaky, too.
I suspect the thread for Federalist #47 will be a long one.
Thanks for your summation and I look forward to the Federalist #47 thread.
Thank you for your response, I have enjoyed your other posts and look forward to the ones to come.