Your response fails to address my statement - that Walt's conclusion about secession does not logically follow from his premise. Madison's opinion may certainly weigh in on another aspect of this debate, as may that of Jefferson, whose writings permit the possibility of secession. But neither of those authorities are the issue at hand. Therefore your citing of Madison is a non-response.
Your response fails to address my statement - that Walt's conclusion about secession does not logically follow from his premise.
The text of the Militia Act is no non-sequitur:
According to the Militia Act of May 2, 1792, as amended Feb 28, 1795, Sec. 2:
"And it be further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such state to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. And if the militia of a state, where such combinations may happen, shall refuse, or be insufficient to suppress the same, it shall be lawful for the President, if the legislatures of the United States be not in session, to call forth and employ such numbers of the militia of any other state or states most convenient thereto, as may be necessary, and the use of militia, so to be called forth, may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the ensuing session."
You'll note it says nothing about a state having passed an ordnance of secession to be a bar to federal action.
And the Supreme Court did not see it that way in the Prize Cases ruling either.
Walt
No one denies the possibility of secession -- not Madison and not Lincoln. Madison called secession only another name for revolution. What is clear is that unilateral state secession is outside U.S. law.
Walt