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To: maro
...secession was illegal and treasonous.

Not so. There would not have been a USA if the constitution had included a clause banning secession. The original thirteen states, north and south, were far too jealous of their own sovereignty, to have entered into such a union.

If the South Carolina militia had not fired on Ft. Sumter, Congress would have had no legal authorization for declaring war.

The victory of the north in the Civil War definitively established the supremacy of the central government over the individual states, and thus, ended federalism as it had been understood by the founders.
46 posted on 01/07/2003 6:46:06 AM PST by ricpic
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To: ricpic
If the South Carolina militia had not fired on Ft. Sumter, Congress would have had no legal authorization for declaring war.

Congress never declared war. There was no one to declare war on.

There was only a "gigantic nest of traitors", as it was called then.

Congressional action was not needed for action in any case. The Militia Act of 1792 allows the president to respond to treason and rebellion while Congress is not in session.

According to the Militia Act of May 2, 1792, as amended Feb 28, 1795, Sec. 2:

"And it be further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such state to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. And if the militia of a state, where such combinations may happen, shall refuse, or be insufficient to suppress the same, it shall be lawful for the President, if the legislatures of the United States be not in session, to call forth and employ such numbers of the militia of any other state or states most convenient thereto, as may be necessary, and the use of militia, so to be called forth, may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the ensuing session."

You'll note it says nothing about a state having passed an ordnance of secession to be a bar to federal action.

The Supreme Court cited the act in its ruling on the Prize Cases in 1862.

Walt

111 posted on 01/08/2003 6:00:40 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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