[ml/nj]

Unless Lincoln is the president and needs another state to add northern votes to assist him in trashing the constitution. Check out West Virginia.

I agree with your characterization here. But it could have been argued that at the time Virginia was not one of the States. (They certainly had no voting representatives in Congress.)

ML/NJ

[Founding Father]

But if Virginia was not a state: a) there is an admission states could secede; b) the North fought against a foreign entity; and, c) reconstruction laws are unenforceable as against foreign entities, thus the entire set of reconstruction laws and the 14th amendment were improperly enforced against states that had seceded.