[Svartalfiar]

Well this retired Soldier would be happy to be recalled to active duty to show either California or South Carolina the error of their ways on succession at the point of a bayonet. As Daniel Webster said: “...Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”

Right. Because we aren't a union of sovereign states, we're just a bunch of provinces of a country called these United States.

[OIFVeteran]

Your right, the states are not sovereign. They do not have the ability to declare war, make treaties with other countries, or a myriad of other powers that sovereign nations have. As Chief Justice Marshall stated in McCulloch v. Maryland; “once the states set in motion
the process that led to the adoption of the Constitution, the newly created federal government obtained from the citizenry a sovereignty that was beyond the states’ control”