Under the US Constitution there never was and never could be such a thing as "state sovereignty."
Essential elements of sovereignty - like the ability to conduct diplomacy and declare war - were reserved to the federal government from day one. Moreover, the Constitution explicitly says that it is the supreme law of the land, not state law, and that the federal judiciary is the sole interpreter of that supreme law.
The notion of "state sovereignty" was a rhetorical chimera - politicians' guff and nothing more.
The position held was that the Constitution would be equally enforced, and it was not being done due to the nullification actions of northern states.
It was indeed being done. The Buchanan administration was, as I pointed out above, sending in armed marshals to enforce the law. The federal government was doing precisely what it was Constitutionally obligated to do.
And the issue of fugitive slaves was largely a red herring. When the federal government started sending in the marshals, almost every fugitive in the north headed for Canada, anyway. And the number of fugitive slaves as a percentage of the slave population was minuscule - the whole controversy amounted to little more than grandstanding on either side.
Your comments are your opinion and do not reflect the reality of the time.
Amusing assertion. Presumably you are 170 years old and have a perfect knowledge of "the reality of the time"? Or is your version of events simply your opinion?
Your statement about a “pro-slavery” court is particularly invalid .
Five of the justices on the Taney court had been slaveholders, had close relations who were slaveholders or were still slaveholders themselves at the time of the decision.
The Justices were bound by the fact that slavery was not illegal, and ruled so.
It's amusing that you make an argument about fictitious "state sovereignty" and then defend a court decision which says that the states had no authority to regulate slavery within their own borders. The authentic Constitutional position, of course, is neither state sovereignty or absolute federal power over the states but the Tenth Amendment. The federal government did not have Constitutional authority in 1857 to regulate slavery within the borders of a state: that was a power reserved to the states. The only powers the federal government had, Constitutionally, was to regulate interstate trade in slaves and to compel the return of escaped slaves. It had no authority to prevent the states from banning slaveholding within their own borders.
Dred Scott was bad law made by an activist court.
Your additional commentaries are factually deficient and need little address
In other words, you have no coherent argument to make.
except to say that the threat of loss of balance of power in Congress had not only South Carolina threatening to secede in 1859, but you also remember that Massachusetts threatened the same a few years earlier over the admission of Texas.
Losing elections is not a violation of Constitutional rights, whether the crybabies hail from Massachusetts or South Carolina. Threatening to secede over an electoral "balance of power" is immoral and unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, your assertions on reapportionment and GOP dominance are irrelevant.
You brought up reapportionment and you brought up alleged GOP "dominance" - so if they are irrelevant topics you have only yourself to blame.
I repeat: reapportionment was completely constitutional and violated no constitutional rights and impinged on no state powers. It was no grounds for rebellion.
Moreover, the fact that the GOP was well-organized in the 1858 and 1860 elections and the Democrats were disorganized and sloppy in those elections are not grounds for rebellion either. Essentially you're arguing that the South was justified in launching an insurrection because of their own terrible electoral job.
The comment about expansionism is also irrelevant since if the efficacy of slave ownership in the territories was valid, it would have already occurred , which it had not.
Again, you were the one who brought up expansionism, as if expansionism was somehow unconstitutional (when the opposite is the case) and as if expansionism was a purely Northern phenomenon - which it manifestly was not, as the Southern Congressional delegation had been the most fervent supporters of the Mexican War and subsequent annexation and continued to support such ventures as a purchase of Cuba, etc.
If expansionism was a legitimate cause for insurrection - which it could never be - then the South were provocateurs and not an injured party.
The commentary on Cuba and central America is smoke if anything.
You brought up expansionism. If expansionism is the question, then Cuba and Nicaragua are not smoke, but fire.
And your audacious commentary about the South being able to block new tariffs is widely known as being false. The Morrill tariff passed the House in May of 1860, with all but one Southern vote against it. It still passed. If you can't be truthful, why post, unless you like to deal in misrepresentations.
I assume the humor in your comments is purely unintentional.
First, there were seven Southern House votes for the tariff - there was only one vote for it from the future Confederacy. If the Southern Democrats had been able to bring in their own border state colleagues and a couple more Northern Democrats than the handful they had, it would have been defeated.
It was a narrowly contested vote and only indiscipline among Democrats carried the day for the GOP, who did not have a majority in the House.
And that was merely the House vote.
There was still a Senate vote, and the Morrill tariff was approved by the Senate in a 25-14 vote - not in May of 1860, but February 28, 1861.
If the seven states of the Deep South had not seceded, their 14 senators would easily have blocked the Morrill Tariff - just as I said.
So don't misrepresent the historical facts: the Southern bloc was strong enough to defeat the tariff, had they not taken their marbles and gone home.
It may seem to you that northern nullification seemed justified; that it did not represent unequal enforcement of the Constitution, but in reality is was de facto misapplication of constitutional protections.
Whether the Northern state legislation was morally justified (it was, of course) or not has no bearing on the Constitutional question: if Southern slaveholders were injured by laws in Northern states they had recourse to the federal courts to challenge those laws, which up to the time of secession had ruled consistently in their favor.
The fact is, the various so-called "Constitutional" arguments for the rebellion are all vanities, invented for the purpose, that have no Constitutional grounds upon any examination.
The real reason for rebellion was the frustrated desire to expand slavery.