A new element has been introduced to reinforce your view: federal largess. With the creation of the federal income tax and the establishment of huge federal bureaucracies, Washington confiscates enormous amounts of wealth from local communities, and thus states, by which the USGVT can then offer assistance to states IF they comply with federal regulations... if the states decline due to state's rights, then they forfeit access to federal funds. All apparently Constitutional. The burden is then on the states to raise the needed revenues in addition to federal taxation on those communities. However, James Madison, the author of the Constitution, stated that that document did not allow for the federal govt to take money from one group of people in order to benefit another group of people. Today that is the whole political discourse: what will the USGVT do for me, and how do I keep from losing it?
Any way you interpret it, we have wandered far off of the original reservation, and I cannot see how we shall ever find our way back, short of complete financial collapse. Who knows how that may turn out, however?
Agree with your response Jefferson and other had their doubts and even Lincoln said if I could preserve the Union and not free the slaves I would do so
We do need to go back to the origins and clean it up as Washington has become like a greedy pig with an attitude, and that must change