unionblue said:
Perception is our apparent problem.
I agree with you and Chief Justice Taney that secession cannot be found in the constitution. You yourself have said over and over the words secession and secede cannot be found anywhere in the constitution, is that not correct?
So in what way, when a form or mode to exercise secession cannot be found anywhere within the constitution, does it's lack or mention give any credence whatsoever that it is a right reserved to states that are no longer sovereign since the adoption of that constitution?
Further, is it was a right reserved to the states, as no attempt made to implement this hidden, unmentioned right, via the Supreme Court or by the constitutional method of amendment? Why was war chosen vice this peaceful means, if secession was so obvious a constitutional option?
Because the Southern states know they didn't have a snowflakes chance in hades to present ANY constitutional justification for unilateral secession.
Hence all that shooting from 1861 - 1865.
You state that will be "stuck" if I can't show you an "explicit prohibition against secession in the Constitution." I have produced a statement by the then Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court who stated, as you have, that secession cannot be found in the constitution and that secession is not constitutional.
I'm "stuck" with the Chief Justice. You're stuck with no mention of the words "secede" or "secession" within the same document, but infer that somehow, in spite of the lack of mention of them, that the right of secession is in there somewhere, invisible to all who read that document.
I'm going with the Chief Justice.