You claim that “the states” have rights that were reserved in the tenth amendment to “the states, and the people”.
That is, as best, error. I refer you to Texas v. White, which explains that “the people” is not just the people of one state, but rather, the people of the whole US.
The territory of the US is the sovereign possession of the whole people. No state (say, SC) can unilaterally remove rights of a person of the US (say a person of NY), as stated in the constitution by the Privileges and Immunities clause. Devolving a part of the US, as the rebels pretended to do is not not something within their authority. Rather, by pretending to have that authority, and by raising armies in time of peace, they violated the constitution and started an insurrection which ended their legitimate authority, but did not end the US claim to the land and people formerly of their state.
Secession is possible, but not unilateral action by a state, rather only by federal action: perhaps by federal legislation, by federal treaty, and certainly by constitutional amendment.
“In accepting original jurisdiction, the court ruled that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union, despite its joining the Confederate States of America and its being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. In deciding the merits of the bond issue, the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were “absolutely null”.[2]
I disagree with the Court. It was a Reconstruction SCOTUS and this is hardly surprising. That Texas REMAINED a state under military government after rebelling against the Federal Government, with a decision like this rendered, defies logic.
Their decision is not grounded in either fact or history. SCOTUS has issued an entire series of decisions, from School Prayer to Eminent Domain to Abortion, that many on this forum disagree with.
I refer you to the EXACT wording of the Tenth Amendment.
“Secession is possible, but not unilateral action by a state, rather only by federal action: perhaps by federal legislation, by federal treaty, and certainly by constitutional amendment.”
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According to the Tenth Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Since the Constitution does not specifically prohibit secession, the Tenth Amendment guarantees that right to the States.