When I tell people that they look at me like I just landed from another planet. What is it about the 10th amendment that is so difficult for people to understand?
The federal governments powers are listed to those 17 things listed in the Constitution.
I grant that you have a good legal position, but once the CSA fired on US positions then the Union had every right to invade as a foreign nation and committed a Casus belli. To be honest the CSA states were lucky to be treated as a rebellion instead of a foreign power for the most part.
You mean the list of negative rights our Benevolent Omnipresent Messiah talked about?
(do I need /sarc?)