It is interesting you hold John Marshall in such high esteem with this matter, considering your dismissal of him when he contradicts you and The Lincoln on habeas corpus. That being noted, I'll permit him to yield to Thomas Jefferson:
"The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Missipi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better." - Letter to John C. Breckinridge, August 12, 1803
It is interesting you hold John Marshall in such high esteem with this matter, considering your dismissal of him when he contradicts you and The Lincoln on habeas corpus.
Been doing some work on that. Lincoln's attorney general wrote an opinion based on the precept then current at the time that each of the three branches of government had the right to interpret the Constitution for itself. It was not current at the time to accept Supreme Court rulings as precedent, but only applying to the particular case.
That may be why Chief Justice Rehnquist, as you know, says the issue has never been decided.
Of course any --case-- brought before the Supreme Court that posited legal secession would have been decided against the secessionists.
They knew that, which is why they resorted to violence instead of the courts.
Walt
I have some Jefferson quotes too.
"It is hoped that by a due poise and partition of powers between the General and particular governments, we have found the secret of extending the benign blessings of republicanism over still greater tracts of country than we possess, and that a subdivision may be avoided for ages, if not forever." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1791
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801.
"The preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801.
"It is of immense consequence that the States retain as complete authority as possible over their own citizens. The withdrawing themselves under the shelter of a foreign jurisdiction is so subversive of order and so pregnant of abuse, that it may not be amiss to consider how far a law of praemunire [a punishable offense against government] should be revised and modified, against all citizens who attempt to carry their causes before any other than the State courts, in cases where those other courts have no right to their cognizance." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:424
It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our State governments are superior to the Federal or the Federal to the States. The people, to whom all authority belongs, have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic; and they have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries. These they have made coordinate, checking and balancing each other like the three cardinal departments in the individual States; each equally supreme as to the powers delegated to itself, and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to itself or to its coparcener in government. As independent, in fact, as different nations." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:328
"The spirit of concord [amongst] sister States... alone carried us successfully through the revolutionary war, and finally placed us under that national government, which constitutes the safety of every part, by uniting for its protection the powers of the whole." --Thomas Jefferson to William Eustis, 1809. ME 12:227
"The interests of the States... ought to be made joint in every possible instance in order to cultivate the idea of our being one nation, and to multiply the instances in which the people shall look up to Congress as their head." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1785. ME 5:14, Papers 8:229
"By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1060.htm
Walt