That IS Blackstone's Commentaries annotated to incorporate the Constitution of the United States you twit! And it was THE law book of THIS land for more than 50 years whether or not YOU or Lincoln like it!
There was NO procedure placed into the constitution wherewith a state could regain its independence.
There sure does appear to be someone around here who clearly does not understand the Constitution and that would be YOU!
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Show me the article, word, or phrase of the constitution which prohibits a state from withdrawing from the union and you've won. Fail to do so and you loose!
If such sentiment had ever been strong throughout the country it should have been easy enough to propose, and ratify an amendment allowing just such an event.
Why on earth would they need to do that since they already had, and still have today, the right?
He also seems to confuse the significance of even the terms that he uses. The debate in 1860 was over the Union. It was a Union of States. To understand the concept, the term "Nation" does not really apply. For example, Sioux were a Nation. England & Scotland were States, united in the United Kingdom at the time. In the Elizabethan era, Scotland was a State, the Scots as a people, scattered in many cases as mercenaries all over Europe, were a Nation--hence the term "Mary Queen of Scots," not "Mary Queen of Scotland."
The fundamental issue over the American Union was really the same in 1860 as now. It goes to the function of a political institution that the Founders Created. It is a structure adopted by an American ethnicity, intended to secure the common interests & liberty of those of that ethnicity. The question then, as now in the age of Obama, is has that structure been corrupted from its purpose.
Those who appeal to it as something created in Heaven--something analogous to the former doctrine of the "Divine Right of Kings," need to go back and read the foundational documents--need to understand what the Declaration of Independence, actually demanded; what the Constitution actually required.
William Flax
You were yammering on about St. George Tucker.
Lincoln knew Blackstone as well as any man in the country. He also knew sophistry and how to not be convinced be it.
Neither 9 or 10 gives the slightest support to destruction of the Union and secession. Perhaps you have heard the phrase “...supreme law of the Land.” You need to carefully study it.
There is no phrase in the constitution stating that the federal government can control or patrol the border so I guess that means to you take all of Latin America can just come on in. There is nothing saying that we can create and fund an Air Force either so get rid of the missiles and bombs, eh?
Changing a constitution is not just a simple matter of some ad hoc bunch declaring themselves free of it. It was created by a SPECIAL act of the entire People and can only be changed by that entire People.
Why shouldn’t South Carolina have been allowed to declare itself a monarchy?