A good statement of the conundrum. My view is, however, that it was not a legal question but a political one. Lincoln assumed that the acts of secession were invalid and asserted that he was supressing a rebellion against the governments of the several states. Anything any court might have decided after the Confederate surrender was simply an acceptance of the faits accomplis. Radical reconstruction, however, made hash of Lincoln’s claim by accepting the Confederate argument and then treated the States as conquered territory. Later , of course, there was an attempted retreat to the Lincoln position, but that was a farce.
a MILLION Americans died for his egomania & & his lust for POLITICAL/social/financial domination of dixie by the north.
free dixie,sw