Which they regained with the 13th Amendment, a piece of legislation that passed WITHOUT the legitimacy of the votes of the Southern States even being questioned. Why? Because they agreed too it. Once the 14th was put up for a vote and they didn't agree...suddenly they were no longer 'legitimate'.
Sounds like a case of "We'll let you play as long as you play our way".
Can you source any Congressional legislation denoting such 'preconditions'?
-----
No one challenges the legitimacy of the state governments, or their post-war right to ratify amendments, or not, according to their perceptions of their states’ interests.
Sorry, but that seems to be exactly what you're doing. Pass the 13th, but balk on the 14th and POOF! we'll use federal force until you agree with us.
-----
The fact that those legislatures saw ratification of the 14th Amendment as part of a bargain to regain their states’ congressional representation does not make the ratification a compelled act.
LOL! You and I apparently have very different definitions of the word 'compelled'.
-----
You don’t seem to be following the argument.
BTW, I'm following the argument just fine. Insulting my intelligence may make you fell better, but it doesn't make my arguments any less viable.
No one questioned the legitimacy of the state legislatures.
Your argument against the 14th Amendment seemed to be its illegitimacy because the states of the former Confederacy had no representatives in Congress at the time it passed, and that those states’ legislatures were somehow compelled against their wills to pass it.
My reply is that the Confederate states voluntarily consented to their lack of representation by announcing their secession—whether or not such secession was legal, and that once representation was forfeited it was the prerogative of the remaining representatives to determine when or whether to readmit those states’ Representatives.
The legitimacy of the “votes of the Southern States” was not at issue in either case; the southern states were not represented in Congress for the passage of either the 13th of 14th Amendments, and the passage of legislation by Congress to provide incentives for those states to ratify the 14th Amendment does not amount to compulsion, since the military occupation of those states and lack of representation were both the direct consequences of insurrection and war against the U.S. within those states.
The fact that the Reconstruction Acts provided incentives for the state legislatures to ratify the amendments does not amount to compulsion to do so. Even if, or especially if, the Reconstruction Acts themselves were unconstitutional that would not invalidate the actions of the state legislatures.
The fact that two states attempted to rescind their approval would only affect the date the 14th Amendment became effective, since two more state legislatures ratified the Amendment by the end of July 1868.