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Well James Madison, one of the men most intimately involved in crafting the US Constitution, would say this argument that the Constitution allows for secession is total nonsense.

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Montpellier, Decr 23, 1832. Isn't that special. Do you really want to hang your hat on 1832 ?

REPORT OF 1799.

It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal, superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and, consequently, that, as the. parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.

Madison was notoriously inconsistent throughout his career on the matter of state and federal relations. Despite his thorough note taking and intimacy with the decisions at the Philadelphia Convention, his authority on the Constitution from later in life is actually pretty suspect.

People tend to forget that the founders were not a monolithic voice of consistency behind a single ideal. They were politicians, and just like the politicians of today they were perfectly capable of reneging on their own word. Madison was pretty notorious for it in his day. Look up the 1794 supreme court case of Hylton v. United States if you want to see just how bad he could be. It was an open and shut ruling on the constitutionality of an excise tax (which is expressly granted as a power to Congress) and the court easily upheld the law on solid constitutional grounds. Well guess what - Madison was the one pushing the challenge of the case and claiming the tax was unconstitutional. And one of his lawyers making that same losing argument was none other than John Marshall.