[Non-Sequitur]

More holes than swiss cheese.

Sorry that you don't approve. But your approval isn't necessary. Unilateral secession as practiced by the confederate states was ruled illegal and will remain illegal unless the decision is overturned by a future court or unless the constitution is amended.

[4CJ]

Sorry that you don't approve. But your approval isn't necessary.

Nah. The decision re: secession was in dicta. Chase's ruling was built on air - nothing in the Constitution prevented secession.

The issue before the court was the sale of the bonds. Incidental to the decision was if the SC had jurisdiction. The court ruled - invented a specious power is more like it - that the state had never left the union. If that was true, then the state legislature could do anything it wanted with the bonds. Chase ruled the state never left, and that the state legislature couldn't change it's own laws. Even Justice Grier, who authored The Prize Cases, noted in dissent that the ruling was a joke.

[4CJ]

In 1845, the federal legislature passed a resolution recognizing that, 'whereas the people of the said republic of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, with the consent of the existing government, did adopt a constitution and erect a new State, with the republican form of government.'

The Texas Constitution and government, which was lawfully recognized by the federal government as republican in nature, contained the following:

That the general, great, and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognised and established, we decare that

SEC. 1. All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and they have at all times the unalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government, in such manner as they may think expedient.

The President of the Texas convention, Thomas J. Rusk, rose and spoke after being elected:

Texas, animated by the same spirit, and following the bright example of the fathers of the American revolution, has acquired at the cost of blood her freedom and independence from those who would have enslaved her people. She now, with a unanimity unparalleled, enters that great confederacy, to whose keeping the bright jewel of human liberty is confided, content to bear the burthens and share the benefits which Republican Government carries in her train.

Regarding Chase's ludicrous, ignorant and asinine opinion that the Union is 'composed of indestructible States', the resolution admitting Texas contained this:

New States of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof.'

Chase invented a decision that is laughable on it's face.