Thanks for an interesting post, but it requires some correction and context.
First of all, Tucker was never a Supreme Court justice, but rather a judge in the Virginia district court.
Second, Tucker was not a Founding Father -- did not attend the Constitutional Convention or vote for the Constitution's ratification.
His opinions therefore, are his own and not Original Intent of the Founders.
Third, this work by Tucker was written in 1803 -- 16 years after the Constitution's ratification, and after there had already been years of rumblings about nullification and secession -- the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Kentucky Resolutions, Louisiana Purchase, etc.
Some people who had been Federalists 15 years earlier were by 1803 murmuring about secession.
But even then, most held fast to the Founders' Original Intent, which was that secession had to be for material reasons such as oppression or usurpations, that it should not be "at pleasure", and that it should be with mutual consent of other states.
Indeed, even a careful reading of Tucker's work shows he did not advocate secession "at pleasure", but only when "necessary".
In November 1860, when Deep-South slave-holders first began the process to secede, there was no Federal oppression or usurpation, there was no necessity secede -- there was only one thing: the constitutional election of an anti-slavery Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.
So the Deep-South slave-holders declared their secession "at pleasure", simultaneously committing many acts of rebellion and war before formally declaring war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.
Before their Declaration of War, no Confederate soldier had been directly killed by any Union force, and a negotiated peace was still possible.
After declaring war, the Confederacy faced only one future: Unconditional Surrender.
True, and I thank you for the correction. His appointment did come, however, from the Father of the Constitution.
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His opinions therefore, are his own and not Original Intent of the Founders.
I never claimed he was a Founder.
From your link:
Tucker, St. George View of the Constitution of the United States with Selected Writings (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1999) (1803) Editor Clyde N. Wilson states that Views of the Constitution "was the first extended, systematic commentary on the Constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights. . . . [and] it was for much of the first half of the nineteenth century an important handbook for American law students, lawyers, judges and statesmen."
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Third, this work by Tucker was written in 1803 -- 16 years after the Constitution's ratification,
1803 was the year of full, Constitutional implementation. It wasn't until then that the federal enclave was completed and the area of 'exclusive legislation' could commence.
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the Alien and Sedition Acts,
However true, therefore, it may be, that the judicial department is, in all questions submitted to it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the government; not in relation to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact, from which the judicial, as well as the other departments, hold their delegated trusts. On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve.
James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions
What about them?
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In November 1860, when Deep-South slave-holders first began the process to secede, there was no Federal oppression or usurpation, there was no necessity secede
Yet you said 'Some people who had been Federalists 15 years earlier were by 1803 murmuring about secession'. What do you think they were muttering about? The price of rice in China?
No, as illustrated by Jefferson's letter in my earlier post, the exercise of unauthorized power by the federal government had already begun.
Despite the fact the federal government had no legitimate authority on the subject of slavery within the States, the clamor of the anti slavery movement had grown louder, and the election of Lincoln was the match to the fuse.
I wouldn't consider the obliteration of the economy of an agrarian based society as a 'transient cause', would you?
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formally declaring war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.
Please provide a source for this Declaration of War.