Chief Justice Jay said in 1793 that:
"Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."
Hard to run a country without money. The states didn't reserve that right. Ooops.
You keep butting up against Chief Justices.
Walt
"A federal court has authority to decide whether Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member accused of plotting with terrorists to detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb, was properly detained as an enemy combatant, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Padilla has been barred from meeting with lawyers since his arrest May 8. U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey said Wednesday that Padilla may meet with them now.
The ruling was a blow to the government, which had argued that Padilla, a U.S. citizen, had no right to challenge its actions in court because he was detained as an "enemy combatant."
Padilla was arrested on a material witness warrant issued by a grand jury and secretly held in a federal jail. He has been in a Navy brig since he was declared an "enemy combatant" in June and transferred to the control of the U.S. military. The government says the "enemy combatant" declaration allows it to hold him without formal criminal charges.
The government said Padilla twice met with senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan in March and discussed a plot to detonate a radiological weapon in the United States.
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney James B. Comey had no immediate comment. Lawyers for Padilla did not immediately return a telephone message for comment."
Padilla is a citizen of the good ol' USA. And unless I missed it, the presnt police chief of Baltimore is not blowing up bridges.
Walt
Per the 10th Amendment (still part of the Constitution), the right of controlling secession was NOT delegated to the federal goverment.
"What is a Constitution? It is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles of fundamental laws are established. The constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it. The life-giving principle and the death-doing stroke must proceed from the same hand. What are legislatures? Creatures of the constitution; they owe their existence to the constitution: they derive their powers from the constitution: it is their commission; and therefore, all their acts must be conformable to it, or else they will be void. The constitution is the work or will of the people themselves, in their original, sovereign and unlimited capacity."
Justice Paterson, Vanhorne's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, (1795)