It's all boo-hoo-hoo from the neo-rebs. "Mean ole Lincoln kicked our butts!"
The sesesh should have read the fine print.
I bet they were pretty stunned that President Lincoln had read the Constitution, and they hadn't.
Walt
Oh, you mean empowered under --law--.
What's your beef? The Constitution gives the clear power to the Congress to provide for the common defense and general welfare.
I think secession would compromise both. If the Congress thinks that, they are clearly authorized to act by the necessary and proper clause.
What it comes down to to is that the sesesh thought they could walk. But they couldn't.
A mugger, you say? The so-called CSA authorized a 100,000 man army while the U.S. army was only 17,000, and mostly scattered in the west. At Pensacola, there was an ordnance sergeant and his wife in charge of the U.S. armory. The contents of this armory the rebels promptly stole. But I digress.
Suppose that the feeling in the north were such that Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers was not met, and reaction in the north was tepid to the rending of the Union.
That wouldn't last long -- an army of 100,000 on our borders? That simply couldn't be tolerated. If the CSA had ever managed to garner any legitimacy -- which it didn't-- if it exchanged ambassadors and embassies and all that -- the United States could still have slam dunked it at any time, and that would have been sooner than later.
Walt