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And were not afraid to do so precisely because the Declaration of Independence guaranteed them the right to get those powers back.

So you would have us believe. But if they give them all up then how can you call them "effectively a nation by our modern usage of the term"? Nothing could be further from the truth. Nations have all the powers that the Constitution stripped from the individual states.

The fact that no one challenged their quite public assertion that they had the right to reassume those powers makes the theory that they could not leave, the misconception.

Nobody challenges some of your crazier quite public assertions either. Doesn't make them right.

Do you have perhaps some contemporary document (~1787) arguing to the contrary of what New York, Virginia and Delaware asserted was their right? I've got three aces. What are you holding to answer them?

You've got nothing but a busted flush. Regardless of whatever else states like New York included in their ratification documents, they also included the words, "We, the said delegates, in the name and in the behalf of the people of the state of New York, do, by these presents, assent to and ratify the said Constitution." If the powers that they assumed they had were not powers granted them in the Constitution then they didn't have it. And if they tried to assume powers through means not allowed by the Constitution then they were in rebellion.

So you would have us believe.

I'm telling you what the document says. I am fully aware that you will chose to believe what you wish to believe.

But if they give them all up then how can you call them "effectively a nation by our modern usage of the term"?

I see no difficulty in having a nation that requires the consent of the governed. When they lose that consent, it becomes more the relationship between master and slave.

I would think we are all against that in principle.

Nobody challenges some of your crazier quite public assertions either. Doesn't make them right.

When I become a State, I will consider the lack of challenge to be agreement.

You've got nothing but a busted flush.

I guess this is your way of saying you can't find a single document from around 1787 that supports your claim that the constitution forbids independence. Yeah, Madison said such stuff years later, but I am unaware of anyone who said it while the constitution was being ratified. Would have probably torpedoed the whole effort.

Perhaps you can find some sort of statement forbidding independence in the Federalist papers? You should get to looking. :)