http://www.wikio.com/article/70749338
Here's another on secession.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/01/25/secession/index3.html
This site concerns Chase's term as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was confirmed in December 1864, and thus was on the bench when Davis was captured. There are some iteresting findings in Texas v. White, and other Chase decisions.
"Milligan had been arrested and charged with treason in 1864.
He was found guilty by a military commission in Indiana and sentenced to hang as a spy but the sentence was not carried out. In 1866 the Supreme Court reviewed Milligan's conviction. In a landmark decision the Court ruled unanimously his conviction was illegal since the civil courts in Indiana were operating and competent to try Milligan on a treason charge and because he was held in violation of the provisions of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863."
"In his opinion in Texas v White(1869), a case that decided the question of the status of the southern states during the war, Chase and the Court had to determine if US Bonds seized and sold by the Confederate state of Texas were payable by Texas after the war was over. Chase first presented the traditional Lincoln theory of secession. That secession did not destroy the State of Texas, nor the obligation of Texans as citizens of the United States."
Chase noted that the Union was not artificial or an arbitrary one. The Union was perpetual.
"It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interest, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessaries of war, and received form, and character, and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these the Union was solemnly declared to be 'perpetual." And when these Articles were founded to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union." It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?,"
"Texas v. White ruled that secession was legally impossible, nevertheless the process of Reconstruction was still Constitutional, grounded as it was in Congress's power to ensure each state a republican government and to recognize the legitimate government in any state. Chase's opinion reaffirmed the permanence of the Union and its states and the duty of the states to the rights and obligations of all citizens."
"Chase was strong in his belief that no state should be readmitted back into the union until it gave voting rights to Negroes."
How can a state be readmitted to a union it never was considered to have left? Lawyers can be on all sides of any question. Stan