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|Cogswell Pepperbox wrote:
Well, whether or not secession is/was or isn't/wasn't legal under the Federal Constitution of 1789 is a different discussion. The Federal Government of 1861 did not believe it was legal and did not recognize the "right" of the States to secede; they did not recognize the Southern Confederacy as a nation, but labeled the action "insurrection" and "rebellion".
My question is, with that in mind, what then was the legal footing for the process of "re-admittance", if, in fact, those States had not legally seceded ?
I may be wrong, but I think the general philosophy was that the Confederate states governments had ceased to exist and they had to show (via a checklist of requirements) that they were in a position to re-engage in the national government...