[rustbucket]

[4CJ] Article V - [N]o State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

[non-seq] If they are expelled then they are no longer a state, are they?

Clearly the states of the Confederacy were out of the Union while the Radical Republicans prohibited their senators from being seated.

We have a precedent for kicking Massachusetts out.

[Gianni]

Whether or not the CSA states were in or out of the Union was a matter of convenience for the RR's. There was no coherent policy either way; in to justify the invasion, out to force passage of the 14th, in/out/in/out.

It's one of the great hypocracies of the war and reconstruction.