Replies

moehoward: "I said "Buchanan may have been against secession..."

Actually, I was trying to be polite by not pointing directly to your whopper-lie, when you said:

"Buchanan may have been against secession but he believed states had the right, and the Court agreed and ruled as much in Dred and Kentucky v. Dennison".

I'm guessing you have no real clue what you meant, but Buchanan never said states "had a right" to secede, just the opposite: he said they had no right under the circumstances to in-effect secede "at pleasure".
What Buchanan refused to do was use US military force to prevent, stop or reverse the Deep South Slave-Power's declarations of secession.

Further, as I pointed out in post #135 above, both Dred-Scott and Kentucky v. Dennison confirmed the "rights" of slave-holders to transport their "property" into non-slave states without losing those "rights".

In effect, those court cases made slavery legal in every state, South, North, East or West.

Remember, in both cases US Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney was 100% pro-slavery, and wrote his rulings in such a way as to maximize slave-holders powers.
If Taney also included opinions which might have discomforted some slave-holders, it was only because he considered those necessary for their larger good.

Finally, as already noted, the Kentucky v. Dennison ruling came after Deep-South slave-holders had already declared secession, and so had nothing to do with their actions.

moehoward: "According to American Legal History 2nd ed., the Chief Justice opinion in Kentucky v Dennison 'was obviously meant to deny Lincoln the power to coerce states back into the Union'. "

US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney was 100% pro-slavery, and wrote his opinions to maximize slave-holders' powers.

President Lincoln never claimed "the power to coerce states back into the Union".
What Lincoln factually stated were his obligations under the Constitution to defeat rebellion, insurrection, "domestic violence", attacks, invasions, treason and declarations of war against the United States.

Indeed, in his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861, Lincoln notified the Confederacy that it could not have a war unless they themselves started it, which they promptly did.