Your comment about NY’s ratification is utterly false. Madison’s letter to Hamilton on the question of conditional ratification put an end to that issue there. H was actually considering letting a conditional ratification go through until that letter declaring once in the union always in the Union. It was then voted down.
Virginia’s legislature had NOTHING to say on ratification. The process was deliberately and explicitly removed from the hands of the legislatures by Congress. The only question was Approved? or Disproved? by a convention not the legislature. Virginia’s legislature could have declared the sky was Pink and appended that to the vote of approval with equal validity and relevance.
It was in NO way “...ratified with that understanding.” The only understanding was that a BoRs would be added by amendment.
NE’s proposed secession was just as illegal as the South’s even though NE had far more valid reasons for it.
Here is New York’s ratification document — Pertinent line at beggining of fourth paragraph:
We, the delegates of the people of the state of New York, duly elected and met in Convention, having maturely considered the Constitution for the United States of America, agreed to on the 17th day of September, in the year 1787, by the Convention then assembled at Philadelphia, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (a copy whereof precedes these presents,) and having also seriously and deliberately considered the present situation of the United States, — Do declare and make known, —
That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people, and that government is instituted by them for their common interest, protection, and security.
That the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are essential rights, which every government ought to respect and preserve.
That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several states, or to their respective state governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution.