So the Confederate States had somewhat sucessfully seceeded.
"So the Confederate States had somewhat sucessfully seceeded."
This was discussed in the 1,100 post thread from a couple of days ago. I don't have my text or notes with me, so please bear with me as I recall the "theory."
The Supreme Court ruled in "Texas v White (1869)" that Texas had not left its jurisdiction. In other words, the Court opined, even though the people of Texas and the government of Texas (less Sam Houston) had illegally claimed to secede, the land remained part of the territory of the United States. Earlier, in July 1861, the Congress reasoned that the States in secession had ceased to have the attributes of organized States and were therefore, ineligible for representation in Congress, in the same way a territory may not have voting members of Congress (like the U.S. Virgin Islands, today).
I suppose you can say they were successful, in that they had to be re-admitted, after being forced to reorganize their State governments, and to change their State documents and laws, and after ratifying the 14th and/or 15th Amenedments. (The last states to be re-admitted came back after the 14th was already law, so they we required to ratify the 15th.)
The long and short of it was, where States "seceded," they ceased to have valid representation and ceased to be functioning entities, although the physical land never left the Union.