[ought-six]

And considdr the composition of the Supreme Court shortly after the War when it supposedly declared secession illegal:

Salmon P. Chase (Chief Justice)....OHIO
Nathan Clifford.....MAINE
David Davis.....ILLINOIS
Stephen Field.....CALIFORNIA
Robert Grier.....PENNSYLVANIA
Samuel Miller.....IOWA
Samuel Nelson.....NEW YORK
Noah Swayne.....OHIO

Gee, they're all Yankees, with the exception of Field from California. Kind of makes you wonder, eh?

[Non-Sequitur]

...when it supposedly declared secession illegal...

It did declare unilateral secession as practiced by the southern states to be illegal. No supposedly to it.

Gee, they're all Yankees, with the exception of Field from California. Kind of makes you wonder, eh?

And that's all the evidence you have? An entirely Yankee court, but a 5 to 3 decision. So what was it? Did Justice Grier, Justice Miller, and Justice Swayne have a rebel in their woodpiles somewhere? And BTW, California remained in the Union, it WAS a Yankee state.

[lentulusgracchus]

Gee, they're all Yankees, with the exception of Field from California. Kind of makes you wonder, eh?

Yeah, the whole spectrum of jurisprudence, from A to E.

And California was a Unionist and freesoiler state; they just didn't participate much in the War because of physical remoteness, though there were one or two deep-raiding incidents mounted by the Confederates (one into Arizona) that might have involved California garrisons.