The notion that the Constitution acknowledged a state’s right to secede was invented by Vice President John Calhoun and other pro-slavery “fire-eaters” during the Jackson administration.
“The notion that the Constitution acknowledged a state’s right to secede was invented by Vice President John Calhoun and other pro-slavery ‘fire-eaters’ during the Jackson administration.”
Nope. You should read St. George Tucker’s 1803 treatise on the Constitution. He summarizes the purpose and intent of the Constitution, and says: “The federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations, and with each other. Their submission to its operation is voluntary: its councils, its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent. But until the time shall arive when the occasion requires a resumption of the rights of sovereignty by the several states (and far be that period removed when it should happen) the exercise of the rights of sovereignty by the states, individually, is wholly suspended, or discontinued, in the cases before mentioned: nor can that suspension ever be removed, so long as the present constitution remains unchanged, but by the dissolution of the bonds of union. An event which no good citizen can wish, and which no good, or wise administration will ever hazard.”