What, did someone repeal Article I on us? Article I, Section 8: To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions. Article IV, Section IV: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence." Obviously the Southern states were in insurrection and opposing the execution of the laws of the Union. And considering that the state governments were the ringleaders then it is folly to think the President had to wait for them to call for their own suppression. But folly makes up so much of the Southron argument.
The Civil War proves one thing beyond dispute: In the age of the steam engine and telegraph; a group of states can leave the USA, then Confederate, form a functioning national Govt. and a huge army in four months. In today's terms, that's pretty good. Shows how useless the Feds really are and how the system SEEMS to be DESIGNED for that event....Hmmmm..
Of course they were "opposing the execution of the laws of the Union" -- they were no longer in the Union, whose laws were now as foreign to them as the laws of France.
They were not, however, in "insurrection" for having resumed their reserved powers and full sovereignty. They were within their rights to do so, and the Framers understood that that would be true someday when they took the vote posted up by Idabilly at No. 79, above:
“Under this Constitution, as originally adopted and as it now exists, no State has power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance of its delegated powers, are the supreme late [sc. "law"; sic] of the land, anything contained in any constitution, ordinance, or act of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
28 nays to 18 yeas (Emphasis supplied.)
His link: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsj&fileName=052/llsj052.db&recNum=378&itemLink=D?hlaw:3:./temp/~ammem_iHF8::%230520379&linkText=1
The language you say you don't need, N-S, to argue that secession was "forbidden" (your word not mine) by the Constitution, was in fact considered and rejected by the Philadelphia Convention.
Smoking gun, Non-Sequitur. And Idabilly posted it up to you and everyone else, and you keep ignoring it.