In order for Lincoln’s position about the right of secession, the following is what the states agreed to when they signed on.
1) No state may ever secede for any reason. 2) If a state does secede, the federal government may suppress the secession with military force. 3) The federal government may coerce all states to provide militias to suppress the seceding state. 4) After suppressing the seceded state, the federal government may govern that state with a military dictatorship until the state accepts the supremacy of the federal government. 5) After the suppression, the federal government may force the state to adopt a new constitution imposed on it by military force, which happened in reconstruction. 6) The president may unilaterally suspend the Bill of Rights and the writ of habeas corpus.
Now, if it took the inclusion of a a written bill of rights to get some of the states to ratify the Constitution, do you think any of them would have signed on if they had believed those six points?
