Did South Carolina -- or did South Carolina not -- solemnly ratify a document on May 23rd, 1788, with the following definition of powers:
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States;—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
Did South Carolina -- or did South Carolina not -- attempt to have its sovereignty claims lawfully adjudicated before its treasonous expedition against the United States?
Those are the only questions at law. No presumption is involved.
How can a state that has seceded from the Union be bound by a Constitution that is an artifact of that Union? You’ll recall that the Confederacy established its own Constitution, leading to the inescapable conclusion that it no longer considered itself bound by the Constitution of the United States.
You’re simply restating the crux of the argument. The Constitution does not grant any rights, including the right to secede. But the Enumerated Powers clause of Article I, Section 8, and the Tenth Amendment allow that, absent any explicit delegation of that authority to the Federal Government, it resides in the states. Since the Constitution does not expressly forbid secession nor does it delegate that power to the Federal Government, it is a power reserved to the states (or the People).
Your whole defense turns on the notion that states are not allowed to exercise sovereignty. If they are, your argument crumbles. Yet you cannot refute my contention that the Confederate secession was perfectly legitimate, except by invoking a circulus in probando fallacy: the Confederacy could not secede because it was part of the United States, and it was inviolably part of the United States because it could not secede.