You tell me. What did Maryland refer to themselves as during that period?
So when Lincoln said "NO ONE of them ever having been a State out of the Union" was he correct "strictly speaking" or not?
He was correct. Vermont was no more a state prior to joining than Texas or California had been. Their status as a state within the Union dated when they were either admitted to the Union under the Constitution or, in the case of the first 13, when they recognized themselves as such in the Articles of Confederation.
Did VT reserve the right to secede but no other? Or MD? Or did the fact that many of the states explicitly reserved the right in their State Constitutions become null and void 80 years later because some autocrat said so?
No state, regadless of their status prior to joining the Union, has the right to leave without the consent of the other states. The Supreme Court ruled that in 1869.
Sure, we can leave MD and TX and VT and RI and any other States and inconvenient facts aside as you wish until you can "validate" your point. I stand corrected once again.
No inconvenient facts need be left aside. Just your odd interpretations.
You now have the "right" to murder the unborn. What a great court you have there.
And what you're saying is complete bullmastiff crap!
Madison in his letter to Nicholas P. Trist, dated February 15, 1830. In it he said something different than your hero court:
Applying a like view of the subject to the case of the U. S. it results, that the compact being among individuals as embodied into States, no State can at pleasure release itself therefrom, and set up for itself. The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect.
Thomas Jefferson to To John C. Breckinridge Monticello
The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Missipi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better.
Thomas Jefferson to governor William Giles 1825:
If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted at once, as a dissolution of it, none can ever be formed which would last one year. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation.
Thomas Jefferson letter to Madison in August 1799:
[We should be] determined... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government...in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.