We do have a process. It is called a Constitutional Amendment Process. How did you miss that?
We call ourselves the UNITED states of america. The word UNITED means something to our founders and to us.
The lack of an exit plan was deliberate. This was brought up as an issue long BEFORE the Civil War. Should a state be able to secede, then it would be able to use the threat of secession as a means of political coercion; In turn, the state for whom secession would be most plausible would become more politically powerful, and the entire union would pretty much become a joke.
How would a state even secede, without annexing federal property? Not an idle question: this was the problem that so quickly led to the South attacking Northern troops. The North had pulled back its forces from most federal forts in Confederate territory, but it was hardly clear that there was any intent to vacate Ft. Sumter, rather than staking a claim. Should the Union simply have given the confederacy what was created by the states as a union? Would a farmer who held land in both Maryland and Virginia be expected to forfeit his land in one of those states? So long as both parties didn’t desire the split, it seems unimagiable that a fair outcome could result.
HOWEVER, there seems no reason that should CONGRESS want to CREATE an exit plan, it couldn’t. While there would be an unimaginable number of political and legal issues to address, legislation could certainly allow for a legutimate means to address them.
We had this thing called the civil war and the result was that nobody can leave.
There was a man who covered the whole subject of a states right to secede. Look up the Innaugural address that was given by the man who was elected president in 1860. The issue of secession has never been so thoroughly explored as in that short read.
Ask yourself this: suppose California upon hearing that Donald Trump had just been elected to the office of POTUS says, "we're out". Would that be ok?
If I remember correctly, there is a legal way for the states to leave the union (other than those which have it written into their admissions). Basically, it’s that since the union was formed by agreement among the states, in order for a state to leave the union it must likewise have the agreement of the other states. In other words, secession is a contractual action requiring the other contractors to okay it. Since this is unlikely to ever occur (except, perhaps, in the case of California), we will never see it happen.
You just start by firing on Fort Sumter.
We have discussed this subject ad nauseum on Free Republic. Basically secession of a state is not unconstitutional because the US Constitution is silent on the subject. There has been agreement among many historians had the founders put a secession clause in the Constitution then it would not have been ratified. Conversely a roach motel clause ( states and join but they can never leave ) would have been a show stopper too.
They didn’t want to jinx things. If they’d included a procedure for leaving the union, states would have dropped out in the early days of the republic.
bkmk