No. The state ratification declarations I was referring to were those made by the states ratifiying the US Constitution. Texas belonged to Mexico then, so it doesn't really apply.
The problem with the "secession was legal" arguement is that none of the southern states brought their case for secession before the US Supreme court.
I think they may have gotten a favorable ruling from the court, especially Virginia which had expressed reservations in their ratification declaration.
If amendment X of the US constitution enumerates a states right to secede, then Article III informs the state(s) where to go with their greivence.
This "the union is perpetual until we decide it isn't" mumbo-jumbo is logistical sleight of hand, that avoids the court and makes the confederates (old and new) look like the disreputable schemers is suspect they were.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. What seems obvious to you, is not obvious to me, and probably vice versa.
I see where you are coming from in arguing for a Supreme Court role here, but I don't believe your argument applies when a state has exercised its sovereignty and seceded. To me, such a state is no longer a part of the Union and is no longer subject to the Constitution. Similarly, I no longer feel bound to the rulings of the British Parliament, regardless of what the British may think (though they gave up on the point long ago).
If it were simply a dispute between states belonging to the Union, then your argument for a Supreme Court role would make more sense.
Secession is the ultimate check and balance (short of arms) protecting our rights against a tyrannical central government.
Coercing states at the point of a gun is not what this country was founded for. As Alexander Hamilton said:
It has been well observed, that to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single State. This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts or any large State should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would not they have influence to procure assistance, especially from those States which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this present to our view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself! Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a Government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -- a Government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a Government.
The clauses in the ratification documents only show that the right to reassume those powers was an accepted idea when the Constitutional union was created. They establish a principle applicable to all states, for if it was true for one, it would be true for another. It was an "equal" Constitutional union.
The problem with the "secession was legal" argument is that none of the southern states brought their case for secession before the US Supreme court....If amendment X of the US constitution enumerates a states right to secede, then Article III informs the state(s) where to go with their greivence.
They did not need to take anything to the Supreme Court because they were not disputing the constitutionality of any law or seeking legal arbitration to any dispute. They were excercising the previously stated right that a State could reassume the powers it had ceded to the Constitutional union. A right declared and included in the very documents that created the Constitutional union. Once they had reassumed those powers, they had also reassumed those powers previously granted to the Court.
This "the union is perpetual until we decide it isn't" mumbo-jumbo is logistical sleight of hand, that avoids the court and makes the confederates (old and new) look like the disreputable schemers is suspect they were.
LOL - Apparently you consider the Founding Fathers to be "schemers" spouting "mumbo jumbo" because they got rid of the "perpetual" Articles of Confederation ten years after creating them. You're starting to sound more and more like ol' waltrot every day. Soon you will no doubt do like him and call the Constitution a "pact with the devil". I would hope that is not the case and that you have merely been misled by him.