[Arkinsaw]

Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation

This applies to States within the Union and that are parties to the compact. If the Southern States had confederated into a regional government BEFORE seceding then this Section would apply. To assume that this applied assumes that the Constitution still bound the Southern States AFTER secession. Appealing to this clause does not solve the question of whether a State could secede. If it can't, this clause has meaning. If it could, this clause has no meaning. In other words....the argument is not changed at all by an appeal to this section.

[rdb3]

To assume that this applied assumes that the Constitution still bound the Southern States AFTER secession.

Oh, give me a flippin' break! It applied BEFORE the Southern states seceeded, therefore, it was illegal for them to seceed to begin with!

Now this is what we call a Clintonian stretch.