Replies

quoting BJK post #327: "In fact, Lincoln ordered emancipation of slaves in states & regions in rebellion against the United States."

DiogenesLamp: "And once again, he cannot legally do that.
The constitution requires the laws of the states that hold them to be obeyed.
It doesn't give him an 'except in the case of rebellion' card to play. "

Of course Lincoln could, and the Constitution does acknowledge distinctions in case of rebellion, insurrection, domestic violence, invasion, declared war and treason.
Our Founders experienced and fully understood that wars include restrictions on "contraband" and also use of slaves promised freedom for service.
In the Revolutionary War both the Brits and Americans promised slaves freedom in exchange for military service, so there was nothing unusual or forbidden about Union behavior on this during the Civil War.

DiogenesLamp: "If the states are part of the Union, the constitution must be obeyed regarding them.
The only out is to declare them not part of the Union, and therefore constitutional law won't apply to them."

Historically speaking, that's exactly what lawyer & Union General Benjamin Butler said, early in 1861, in refusing to return runaway slaves to their Confederate "masters".
But Lincoln himself disapproved, just because of the implied recognition of Confederate legitimacy.

So Congress acted in August 1861 with the Confiscation Act,

"which declared that any property used by the Confederate military, including slaves, could be confiscated by Union forces.
The next March, its Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves forbade returning slaves to Confederate masters or the military."

Those then became part of the basis for Lincoln's 1862 Emancipation Proclamation.

DiogenesLamp: "But as i've said, the status of southern states was maintained in a condition of quantum super position, being both in the Union and Out of it simultaneously, depending upon what legal argument needed to be made to do what Lincoln wanted."

"Quantum super position"?
That's a mouthful, brings to mind Schroeder's cat... which both is & isn't simultaneously, in a quantum state.

But I don't think any such physical paradoxes are necessary to define the legal status of Confederate states during the war -- they were in rebellion and normal laws which apply to such states held.
That includes states like Virginia & Tennessee which had huge regions with majority Union loyalists.
Those were treated with all deference as if still part of the Union.

Bottom line: so far as I've ever read nobody ever took your legal arguments here seriously enough to have them tested in the Supreme Court.