[4CJ]

The congressmen remaining after the departure of the several seceded states met in Washington for a secret convention in February 1861. Now obviously, if the Constitution prohibited secession (or Militia Act etc.), there would have been no need for those congresscritters to meet and craft an ex post facto amendment prohibiting secession.

Mr. Guthrie proposed the following:

"The Union of the States under the Constitution is indissoluble, and no State can secede from the Union, or nullify an act of Congress, or absolve its citizens from their paramount obligation of obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Mr. Field offered:

"The Union of the States, under the Constitution, is indissoluble."

And this:

"No State shall withdraw from the Union without the consent of all the States, given in a Convention of the States, convened in pursuance of an act passed by two-thirds of each House of Congress."

Mr. Goodrich proposed:

"And no State can secede from the Union, or nullify an act of Congress, or absolve its citizens from their paramount obligations of obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Lucius E. Chittenden, Report of the debates and proceedings in the secret session of the conference convention, for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, held at Washington, D.C., in February, A.D. 1861, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864, pp. 396-398.

There is much more in the book, it's several hundred pages.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Mr. Field offered:

"The Union of the States, under the Constitution, is indissoluble."

Which is pretty much what James Madison said in 1787.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

There is much more in the book, it's several hundred pages.

Quote the book on how tariffs figured in to all of this.

Walt

[one2many]

Good info; thanks. BTW, got the missive today. Will give you a call.