The act authorizes the president to use the militia of the several states to ensure that it -is- part of the United States.
What this means is that the concept of unilateral state secession cannot be supported in U.S. law.
Walt
Once again our debate has come full circle. The concept of unilateral state secession doesn't have to be supported in U.S. law. A state that has seceded is no longer bound by U.S. law.
Perhaps you would like to address the fact that there was nothing in English law that supported the right of a colony to exercise unilateral secession. From that perspective the colonists were nothing but filthy rebels who deserved to be ground into the dirt and forced back into submission just like Lincoln did in the South.