Replies

BJK said: Numerous quotes to that effect have been cited here on past threads. One of the clearest expressions comes from James Madison, in 1830:...

Please provide source documentation for where this expression was adopted by the Founders and incorporated in their work.

BJK said: Founders' expressions of Original Intent regarding secession all reflected Madison's view expressed above...

Please provide said expressions from the Philadelphia Convention.

BJK said: ...their unconstitutional declarations of secession...

Please provide source documentation proving the declarations of secession were unconstitutional at the time of their adoption.

southernsunshine: "Please provide source documentation for where this expression was adopted by the Founders and incorporated in their work."

Contract law was as well (indeed better) understood in those days as today, and so the obvious did not need to be frequently restated.
But any statements you do find from the Founders -- meaning those who wrote and voted to ratify the Constitution -- fall within the limits set by Madison in my post #236 above:

"...the compact being among individuals as imbodied 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.
"It will hardly be contended that there is anything in the terms or nature of the compact, authorizing a party to dissolve it at pleasure."

Virginia's ratification statement says the same thing, in so many words:

"...powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..."

In other words, in today's language, there must be a material breach of contract for a constitutional secession.

Even the New York ratification statement, that most generalized of all, clearly implies breach of contract in using the word "necessary":

"That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness... "

The word "necessary" is the opposite of "at pleasure".

So let me invite you to re-examine your entire lengthy file of Founders' quotes, and find even one which expresses the understanding that a State could secede from the compact "at pleasure".

Yes, I understand your 10th Amendment argument, but the 10th Amendment refers to normal and lawful powers of government, it does not authorize anyone to commit unlawful acts, such as secession "at pleasure."

So here are the bottom lines:

Deep-South slave-holders' declarations of secession, "at pleasure", were unconstitutional.
Numerous unlawful actions -- i.e., seizures of Federal properties -- committed by secessionists amounted to rebellion or war against the United States.
The Confederacy's declaration of war on the United States, on May 6, 1861, ended the possibility of a negotiated resolution.
No Confederate soldiers were killed by Union forces until after the Confederacy declared war.