I have no wish or intent to attack you personally Mac and I'm sorry you took my remarks as such. I have heard these argument so many times over the years they have in fact become dogma to me.
Nonetheless Bigun, I am not just a victim of public school bs, as you delicately put it earlier. And what is dogma to one is truth to another.
Yes we do disagree and that is likely to continue. I believe that "dissolution of the bonds of union" was exactly what the states that made up the Confederacy were trying to do and also that they had, and still have to this day, every legal right to do so!
You see, we can agree on something. Yes, the slave-holding states wanted to dissolve the Union, and yes they have every legal right to
attempt do so. They simply failed to go about it legally. Even today they can pass an amendment through Congress, or call a convention of the states. Until then, as your legal scholar emphasized, they are bound into a union they ratified.
But I occasionally take on issues not completely appreciated on forums such as this. I don't think you were here when I took on the issue of natural born citizen. I managed to make fewer friends than enemies, lol.
Will you please cite, chapter and verse please, the portion of the Constitution which gives the fed gov. the authority to prevent by force of arms or any other method a state from leaving the union?