[lentulusgracchus]

....The southern acts of secession were unconstitutional because the Supreme Court of the United States, in their wisdom and by a 5 to 3 margin in an 1869 decision, says that they are.

Quoting Article I, Section 9 (in part): "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

Pardon me if I point out that 1861 was anterior to 1869; that the Supreme Court is notorious for reading election returns and war news; and that they were....wrong, just as they were wrong in Plessey vs. Ferguson and United States vs. Miller.

And like I said, when we talk about Union and disunion, convention and ratification and secession, we're playing at a level above the Supreme Court's pay grade. The real answer was, the acts of secession voted by the conventions and plebiscites of the Southern States in 1860 and 1861 were ultra vires the United States and its federal courts.

[Non-Sequitur]

If you want to say that the Supreme Court has issued some really wretched decisions then you get no arguement from me. Plessy v.Ferguson, Sanford v. Scott, and a host of others are all decisions I have problems understanding at times. But just because these decisions are wrong in our eyes, and even though they were later overturned does not take away their validity. And just because you believe that Justices in their decision in Texas v. White were...wrong does not overturn that decision. Texas v. White is valid and will remain valid until overruled by a Constitutional amendment or overturned by a future Supreme Court ruling. Unilateral secession as practiced by the confederates was not and is not legal.

You can quote Article 1, Section 9 all you want. It means nothing. This is not an example of an ex post facto law. It is the court ruling on the Constitutionality of a piece of legislation passed by the state of Texas. They ruled that act invalid.