Nowhere in the Constitution is the power of secession explicity prohibited to the states. Thus, under Article X, that power is fully reserved to the states, or the people. You meant to say Amendment X, of course.
However, insurrection, treason, and many other things that the Confederate states did, are among those things that are explicitly prohibited, and the Federal Government is granted the power to deal with such things.
Your argument seems to rest on the idea that Secession is not insurrection. This runs counter the language in Article VI, which explicitly makes the laws and constitutions of the several states inferior to the Constitution.
Not to mention the fact that the specifics of the actual secession cannot be viewed as anything other than an insurrection.
Basically, it's not insurrection if secession is mutually agreeable to the several states (the ones staying AND the one's going). This was not the case, however.
You meant to say Amendment X, of course. However, insurrection, treason, and many other things that the Confederate states did, are among those things that are explicitly prohibited, and the Federal Government is granted the power to deal with such things. Your argument seems to rest on the idea that Secession is not insurrection. This runs counter the language in Article VI, which explicitly makes the laws and constitutions of the several states inferior to the Constitution.
 You're right--I did mean Amendement (that's one of the hazards of typing while you work). Previous posts on this thread ( mine and others) have demonstrated that secession was no insurrection since it itself was an act by duly-elected civil authority (in fact, by the very bodies that had ratified the Constitution eighty years earlier). |