So you're saying that for the states to outlaw slavery was illegal?
The finding is fact. Postulating about what might have happened is not fact. Something I've already mentioned.
What have we been doing all along but postulating? Obviously the Southern leadership viewed it as more than postulating on Lincoln's part, but as a very real threat. One worth rebelling over.
Once legal Notice was received as the Law requires, South Carolina was no longer a 'State' as far as the federal government was concerned.
Irrelevant. Sumter continued to be the property of the federal government. Nothing in law magically changed ownership from one to the other without the government's permission.
There are decades of Constitutional history prior to the War, surely you can find something in there to support your position.
How about something to support your position?
As the States were a lawful authority and no one was defying it. There was no rebellion.
The federal government was the lawful authority under the Constitution. The defiance was to them.
I've already showed where the States MUST request the assistance before the federal government can enter it.
And I've shown you where Congress has the authority to call up the milita to enforece the laws and suppress insurrection. And that doesn't require the request from the states. Precedent goes back to 1794 when Washington called up the militia to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion without the request of governor.
Proof enough? Again, no Rebellion.
Again, there was.
No, I'm saying the federal government had no authority to outlaw slavery.
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Sumter continued to be the property of the federal government.
Which owns nothing. It merely holds such property as a delegated trust for the collective States.
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The federal government was the lawful authority under the Constitution. The defiance was to them.
And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess.
St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, Of the Several Forms of Government, Section XIII
There is no way to justify the reaction of the Union on the simple basis of destruction of a fort that had yet to be completed, manned, or even fully armed until after South Carolina delivered her notification.
It had everything to do with an involuntary union of States.
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Precedent goes back to 1794 when Washington called up the militia to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion without the request of governor.
First, the ability to legislate for an enumerated area and the authority to collect a tax are two totally different powers.
Secondly, Washington only attempted to call out the militia without the request of the Governor. He did not succeed.
But Mifflin declined, asserting that a president in peacetime and in the absence of any local request for help had no authority to direct a state governor to use a state militia for any purpose. In the process, he established a precedent that is still honored today.
The Whiskey Rebellion
Washington then issued a proclamation requesting the assistance of Pennsylvania, and Mifflin agreed.