Where does the Constitution prohibit secession? There's certainly no express prohibition, and it's difficult to argue that a prohibition is implicit in the text.
The strongest argument for the latter was made by Lincoln in his inaugural address.
http://lincoln.thefreelibrary.com/Abraham-Lincolns-First-Inaugural-Address
He argued that the purpose of the United States Constitution was "to form a more perfect union" than the Articles of Confederation, which were explicitly perpetual ("the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual."
AOC XIII); thus the Constitution too was perpetual.
The obvious counter to this, however, is that the elimination of the "perpetual" clause from the Constitution is clearly indicative of the framers' intention to obviate that provision.
In the same speech, Lincoln advances the further argument that even if the Constitution were a simple contract, it would require the agreement of all parties to rescind it, and therefore any ordinances of secession were "legally void".
But again, there is an obvious counter to this: in the case of a breach, a contract can be rescinded at will by the non-breaching party.
In August of 1856, BEFORE the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln had stated the following:
"Do you say that such restriction of slavery would be unconstitutional, and that some of the States would not submit to its enforcement?
I grant you that an unconstitutional act is not a law; but I do not ask and will not take your construction of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the tribunal to decide such a question, and we will submit to its decisions; and if you do also, there will be an end of the matter.
Will you? If not, who are the disunionists -- you or we?"
However, AFTER the Supreme Court rendered its decision, the northern states REFUSED to submit to it; northern legislatures passed laws that said no person in the state should be considered as property, and set free every slave who came into the state.
Therefore, by Lincoln's own word, the northern states - by refusing to submit to the decision of the Supreme Court - breached the Constitutional "contract," thus empowering the non-breaching southern states to rescind it.
TheMeeper Wrote:
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> Go read the Texas v. White decision, I already told you that.
I doubt that you've read the opinion.
As Justice Grier's dissent rightly observes, the question of secession was decided in battle, long before it reached the Supreme Court.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0074_0700_ZD.html
Further, Justice Chase's summary conclusion as to the indissolubility of the Union, as noted by leading Constitutional scholar David Currie, "hardly seems an adequate treatment of an issue on which reasonable people had differed to the point of civil war" (David P. Currie,
The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The First Hundred Years, 1789-1888 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 312)
Specifically, Chase's brief argument rests primarily on the "perfect union" language of the Constitution, which arguments fails, as discussed above.