People nowadays are unaware that each "state" was effectively a nation by our modern usage of the term. The "United States" was a collection of nations united for the common good of them all.
The Federal blueprint (Constitution) was beautifully designed; but that did not alter original commitments to a developing Virginia, which was for a long time the leading member of that Federation.
And I often remind people that Virginia, as well as New York, incorporated verbiage into it's ratification statement asserting the right to reassume the powers of a sovereign state.
No one at the time objected to this verbiage, and no one claimed they could not reassume the powers they were giving up.
The problem is--as I see it--that many confuse a well designed bureaucracy, set up for a laudable purpose, with a sovereign deserving patriotic loyalty. The Federal Government is a bureaucracy, beautifully designed, but neither perfect nor entitled to blind obedience in whatever direction its bureaucrats or office holders chose to decree.
LOL! Really? So they were nations which gave up control over foreign relations, currency, and ability to choose their form of government? They could not control their own trade or maintain their own army or navy. They were required to respect the public acts and judicial proceedings of the other "nations" even when it conflicted with their own and were required to grant the citizens of other "nations" the same rights and privileges that their own people enjoyed. They were allowed, within limits, to run things within their own borders but every single power that a sovereign nation enjoys was denied them? So are you saying they were nations? Or colonies?