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My point, which you must concede in fairness, is that you cannot bind people to rulings made after the fact.

I don't concede that at all because that is not the fact of the matter with the overwhelming majority of Supreme Court decisions. When the court issued it's ruling in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education did they say that those areas practicing 'separate but equal' policies could go ahead and continue while no future instances would be allowed? When the court issued their decision in Furman v. Georgia did they say that Georgia and the other states could go ahead and execute those already on death row, but had to alter their laws for those they would try in the future? No, to both cases. The court ruled that actions made in the past were illegal and that they could not continue. It voided those actions and required changes be made based on those decisions. Likewise in Texas v. White. Chief Justice Chase didn't say that secession was illegal as of now and don't you ever try it again. He said, "Considered, therefore, as transactions under the Constitution, the Ordinance of Secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the Acts of her Legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law." The actions taken were as invalid and illegal in 1861 as they were in 1869.

He said, "Considered, therefore, as transactions under the Constitution, the Ordinance of Secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the Acts of her Legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law." The actions taken were as invalid and illegal in 1861 as they were in 1869.

I don't doubt for a second that he wrote that; I credit you entirely. However:

1. He's wrong.

2. He's handling matters above his pay grade. He has no standing whatever to judge acts of the People in Convention assembled. When the People assemble as the People, they can take back every delegated power, every decision, nullify every ordinance, law, discretion, appropriation, and court decision ever made. The People answer to God. Period. Or don't you believe that?

3. With the words, "Considered, therefore, as transactions under the Constitution", the Justice fibbed. They were not undertaken "under the Constitution". They were undertaken by the People, who are above Constitutions, as witness the fact that they may assemble at will, and change the Constitution at will. The Constitution is their creature, not the other way around.

Unless you're a Lincolnian, in which case, the Justice had to earn his pay by subjecting every person in the United States to the Government, and enthroning the Government as Sovereign.