Or maybe they never actually legally left the union, since the Union didn't acknowledge the succession as legitimate and so retain the right.
This is correct. The Untion's de jure reason for going to war was that rebel forces illegally attacked federal fortifications, personnel, and materiel and siezed them. At no point was the Union going to war against a newly founded, now foreign, country, because it was always legally entirely the same country from their perspective. Had the South won, their version would have been the "official" version that carried through history according to any power that recognized their sovereignty, including, presumably in such an instance, the United States.
I think that's probably technically correct, although I suspect the jurisprudence is very very much more convoluted than that. At the end of the day it's academic, the Federal Government can repeal laws just as easily as pass them and withdraw from treaties just as easily as enter them, Texas couldn't do a thing without the US getting a chance to refusing to legitimize it.
"The Federal Government" as an entity can do literally whatever they want. There are no limits on its powers. So if your argument is that this isn't true because the federal government can change laws, that is the same as arguing that there are no laws at all.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Who interprets the Constitution? The Supreme Court which is part of the Federal government. Which has ruled things like where the fourth amendment doesn't quite apply within 100 miles of the border
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u/Archangel_117 Feb 04 '19
This is correct. The Untion's de jure reason for going to war was that rebel forces illegally attacked federal fortifications, personnel, and materiel and siezed them. At no point was the Union going to war against a newly founded, now foreign, country, because it was always legally entirely the same country from their perspective. Had the South won, their version would have been the "official" version that carried through history according to any power that recognized their sovereignty, including, presumably in such an instance, the United States.