The Constitution talked about the admission of states. What it said there doesn't apply to exits. You make a very big logical leap by asserting that it applied to the opposite of what it covered. Since it didn't address secession, nor did anywhere else in the Constitution, the Tenth amendment which covers powers not prohibited to the states.
The NY and VA ratifications of the Constitution only occurred after the reassume or resume powers of government statements were added to the ratification documents.
In case you've forgotten, Jefferson Davis, a better Constitutional scholar than you, was never tried for treason. Treason against the United States only applies to what someone did while a citizen of the United States. Davis was no longer that during the war.
I have nothing but contempt for justice taney
I respect the unanimous decision of Chase et al after the war in Ex Parte Milligan that said the Constitution was for all times, including war. That decision was a rebuke to Lincoln's actions during the war, or at least what he permitted his military to do. That unanimous decision was delivered by Lincoln's close friend on the court, an executor of Lincoln's will.
It is a shame the Court did not have the moxie to reign in Lincoln's military during the war, like a Confederate District Court did the Confederate military. On the other hand, Lincoln would have probably thrown the Court into jail if they had done that. Court members probably remembered the threat to arrest Chief Justice Taney for opposing Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus and holding people in jail for more than a year without charges..
Chase's opinion in Texas v. White does have the force of law like we have both said, but I think it is one of the most wrongheaded decisions in the Court's history and an assault on the Founder's Constitution.
Well, I can see we live on different planets. Enough said. Be well, rockrr
You make interesting, if unpersuasive arguments Rusty. I know that we chew on these topics regularly but whatever argument we proffer it needs to reflect reality or it will simply be laughed away.
The legality of secession was largely untested in 1861. There were multiple points of view but all followed (more or less) the binary that either is was legal or it wasn’t. The plain unvarnished truth is that it was highly contested and emotions on the subject were intense.
I may not be the scholar that ol jeff davis was - especially when it comes to yanking Camels through the eye of a needle - but I know how foolhardy it is to risk war needlessly. The actions and mouth of jeff davis put an entire nation at mortal risk. Needlessly. Horrifically.
Instead of finding mutuality with the fellow states or at least confidence in his understanding of the law he brazenly struck out, breaking agreements and thrashing the constitution his ancestors swore to obey and defend.
A war was fought over his actions. His side lost. It is considered settled law in present-day United States that secession, as practiced by the confederates, is illegal. The insurrectionists had no legal right to do what they did, especially the way they did it. Yes, there was an entity called the confederate states of america but it was illegitimate and essentially stillborn.
Of course the true test of the things I’ve said is to put it to practice - mount a secession effort. Take a case to SCOTUS. Better yet, take your case to Congress where it rightly belongs. Do those things and who knows - perhaps you will prevail where the insurrectionists failed.
Or do it the way they tried and I guarantee that you will fail.
Yea, apparently we live on different planets. Mine is called Earth - what’s yours called?
Sure, as you quoted in a post #457 above, that is the argument made by Jefferson Davis himself, in 1861.
But that argument was never made by any Founder, nor by any state ratification convention.
What the Founders said was that mutual consent or necessity caused by such breaches of compact as "usurpations" and "abuses of power" were justifications for disunion, but not unilateral declarations, "at pleasure".
Further, Founders clearly demonstrated exactly how such matters should be handled: through a convention of the states authorized to rewrite the Constitution adding or deleting such states as may seem appropriate to them.
Nor should we discount the possibility of Congress authorizing a state's secession, since Congress already authorizes new states' entry.
rustbucket: "In case you've forgotten, Jefferson Davis, a better Constitutional scholar than you, was never tried for treason.
Treason against the United States only applies to what someone did while a citizen of the United States.
Davis was no longer that during the war. "
Which may explain the deciding rationale behind the otherwise insane-seeming and totally unnecessary Confederate Declaration of War on the United States, May 6, 1861.
But neither Davis nor any other Confederate were charged with treason, for reasons better understood as "peace and reconciliation" efforts than over-concern with Constitutional technicalities.