rustbucket: "And Lincoln's opinion was not?"
Lincoln was a lawyer < /gasp >. What Lincoln understood about contract law is that a contract does not come into existence at the moment of a document being signed. Instead, the contract comes into existence at the moment it is agreed to, and the parties begin to act as if there were a contract. In short: a verbal agreement is just as much a contract as a piece of paper.
The Union is a contract -- an agreement amongst the States and amongst "We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..." -- Note here the opening phrase is "We the People," not "We the States" a matter of some importance.
The American contract of Union actually began, however humbly and weakly, with the First Continental Congress in 1774, and it's Articles of Association.
Of course, you can say: that was no real Union, but I would respond, this was the moment of conception, so to speak, of the "Child" finally born in 1788. And that is clearly what Lincoln was referring to.
To say, as Lincoln did, that the Union is older than the States, is simply to report the fact that the conception of Union happened years before the Colonies were first declared to be States -- by the Union.
"I take issue, of course, that it was the "Union" doing all that. If they were already united in a Union, why would this supposed Union say we need to be "uniting all our councils" [their words] as it did in asking the "sovereign and independent communities" to agree to the Articles of Confederation?"
In 1777, when the Articles of Confederation were written, the Union already consisted of a Continental Congress, with a national Army under its Congressionally appointed Commander in Chief -- George Washington -- plus numerous ambassadors and representatives to foreign nations negotiating for loans and military support, plus a printed currency. Imho, these are not trifling matters.
As to where that Continental Congress got its powers, consider this quote (my emphases added):
"The appointment of the delegates to both these congresses was generally by popular conventions, though in some instances by state assemblies.
"But in neither case can the appointing body be considered the original depositary of the power by which the delegates acted; for the conventions were either self-appointed "committees of safety" or hastily assembled popular gatherings, including but a small fraction of the population to be represented, and the state assemblies had no right to surrender to another body one atom of the power which had been granted to them, or to create a new power which should govern the people without their will.
"The source of the powers of congress is to be sought solely in the acquiescence of the people, without which every congressional resolution, with or without the benediction of popular conventions or state legislatures, would have been a mere brutum fulmen; and, as the congress unquestionably exercised national powers, operating over the whole country, the conclusion is inevitable that the will of the whole people is the source of national government in the United States, even from its first imperfect appearance in the second continental congress.."
Cyclopædia of Political Science. New York: Maynard, Merrill, and Co., 1899."
rb quoting George Washington: ""As the Cherokees reside principally within the territory claimed by North Carolina, and as that State is not a member of the present Union, "
Do not Washington's words "present Union" clearly imply a previous Union? And if not, for what, exactly, did Washington & his Army spend all those years of misery warring against the British? ;-)
The previous Union was, of course, the imperfect Union formed by the Articles of Confederation, which was the first attempt at Union, IMHO.
I suggest reading Van Tyne's discussion about whether the delegates of the First and Second Continental Congresses and the people/legislatures who sent them considered those congresses to constitute a Union. Van Tyne describes the instructions to the delegates from their various home states/conventions. They are revealing and not what one would expect if the Continental Congresses were more than simple defensive and diplomatic leagues. Here's a link. [Van Tyne]
This link is to a much longer, more detailed discussion than the synopsis of Van Tyne's arguments I found and posted earlier.
You will note that "We the People" did not ratify the Constitution, but the individual states did in their separate ratifying conventions. The "lumpen" people did not form the Union or ratify the Constitution.
The "more perfect Union" does not have any prohibition against secession. It wouldn't have been "more perfect" if it had outlawed secession and left states oppressed by a majority of other states with no recourse except to fight their way out. If the Constitution had outlawed secession, it would not have been ratified, as I've said before.
In addition to Va, RI, and NY saying that they understood the Constitution to mean that they could reassume their own governance, the following states insisted on various forms of what eventually became the Tenth Amendment, the basis of the right to secede:
South Carolina: "This Convention doth also declare, that no section or paragraph of the said Constitution warrants a construction that the states do not retain every power not expressly relinquished by them, and vested in the general government of the Union.
North Carolina proposed amendment: "1. That each state in the Union shall respectively retain every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Constitution delegated to the Congress of the United States, or to the departments of the federal government."
Massachusetts proposed amendment: "First, That it be explicitly declared that all Powers not expressly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several States to be by them exercised."
New Hampshire proposed amendment: "I. That it be explicitly declared that all powers not expressly and particularly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution, are reserved to the several States, to be by them exercised."
That makes a total of seven states, a majority of the then Union. More states than that eventually ratified the Tenth Amendment.