I’m making a separate post to highlight the crux of the 2 flaws in your “Constitutional” argument, since these are the key points which demolish your entire argument, and you keep conveniently declining to answer my repeatedly pointing them out to you. If you won’t answer this post, then I’ll consider the argument over and I won’t respond to anymore of your posts, since a debate where one side evades the key issues is fruitless.
The first is your ignorance of the meaning of “general law”, the second, your misinterpretation of the word “prove”. These are legal terms, not subject to your personal interpretation, so I’m going to just go ahead and give you the legal definitions, in the hope that you will stop embarassing yourself and abandon these senseless lines of argument.
“General”
“Pertaining to, or designating, the genus or class, as distinguished from that which characterizes the spccics or individual. Universal, not particularized; as opposed to special. Principal or central; as opposed to local. Open or available to all, as opposed to select. Obtaining commonly, or recognized universally; as opposed to particular. Universal or unbounded; as opposed to limited. Comprehending the whole, ordirected to the whole; as distinguished from anything applying to or designed for a portion only. As a noun, the word is the title of a principal officer in the army, usually one whocommands a whole army, division, corps, or brigade. In the United States army, the rank of “general” is the highest possible, next to the commander in chief, and is only occasionally created. The officers next in rank are lieutenant general, major general,and brigadier general.”
Quoted from Black’s Law Dictionary
http://thelawdictionary.org/letter/g/page/5/
The key, in terms of the phrase “general law”, is “Universal, not particularized; as opposed to special.” Congress does not have the right to make particular or special laws concerning proving acts by the states. The laws governing the proving of an act of secession are, therefore, the same universal laws governing the proving of every other law.
“Prove”
“In a legal proceeding, to present evidence or logic that makes a fact seem certain.”
Quoted from NOLO’s Plain-English Law Dictionary
http://www.nolo.com/dictionary/prove-term.html
As you can see, prove does not carry any connotation of approval, but pertains only to demonstrating a fact, in this case demonstrating the laws, acts, statutes, etc that a State has passed. Your assertion that Congress must prove acts of State, is, in fact, completely backwards. Congress defines laws which tell States how to prove their laws to the other States. So it is not even Congress that must do the “proving”, it is the State!
“And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”
Congress may prescribe the manner in which the acts shall be proved. Paraphrasing, since I know you have trouble with the word “prove”: Congress may prescribe the manner in which laws are demonstrated to be valid. Who is Congress prescribing this to? It is the States, since it is the States who must demonstrate their laws to the other States, so that they may give them full faith and credit. If Congress needed to prescribe something to itself, there would be no need to put that in the Constitution, since it would be an internal matter covered by parliamentary procedure.
Please, either refute these definitions or stop ignoring or misinterpreting them in order to prop up your faulty argument.
For instance, since secession is such a momentous act, perhaps the Congress would require a referendum of all the voters in that state, or of super-majorities of the legislature. Perhaps Congress would have the neighboring states give their input on security matters and traffic and trade matters. There would certainly have to be restitution on federal property in the state's borders, restitution or perhaps an agreement like we have with Gitmo.
It's ridiculous to think the secessions of 1861 were legitimate secessions, there were no agreements on anything, just wanton stealing.
Let's see if you can answer questions on two topics:
#1 Does Article 4 cover the entry of states in the union? If so, wouldn't that be the most logical place to look to see how the exit of states is to be inferred? Naturally, Madison didn't explicitly write in the Constitution how to destroy the Constitution, so he wouldn't lay secession out step by step, but we can see that Congress is the controlling authority when it comes to relations between the states.
#2 If South Carolina would have allowed the congress to set the process for secession and then followed that process including restitution of federal property, then would there have been a squabble over Fort Sumter?