The Union pre-dated the Constitution of 1787. It pre-dated the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (the first constitution of the country). It even pre-dated the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration gave the Union a legal basis as an independent polity. It also gave expression to the redefinition of colonies as states, and subject colonists as citizens of the new entity. First the Articles, and then the Constitution, provided an operating agreement between the nation's semi-sovereign states.
No state ever existed outside of the Union. This includes Texas, Hawaii, and other area thay may have as part of other sovereignties, or as sovereign entities themselves, as they were not part of the Union at that time.
Next you'll be saying that Great Britain doesn't exist as a state either.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
...and that, boys and girls, is a classic example of the logical absurdity that comes to consume an opinion when that opinion is derived not from reason but rather a need to justify and purify, at all costs, the less-than-saintly actions of an illegitimately worshipped idol.
In Lincolnian mythology and Hamiltonian whiffenspeak only.
The Constitution is the relevant document. The States owe one another nothing further under the old Articles of Confederation; they are null and void. The Union dates from ratification of the Constitution.
Lincoln's theory is spurious and fictive. We've been over that, and you've been refuted -- how many times? Maybe we refuted someone else on some other thread. Anyway, it was an invention of the Federalists and the Whigs -- Jay and Marshall trying to rewrite the Constitution in dicta from the bench, Lincoln doing it literally on the battlefield, with the Gettysburg Address. All buncombe.
The Declaration gave the Union a legal basis as an independent polity.
No, it didn't. The Declaration of Independence was a vision statement and manifesto, only. It did not provide a legal basis for anything. That was supplied by the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.
It also gave expression to the redefinition of colonies as states, and subject colonists as citizens of the new entity.
Operative word is "expression". It wasn't a contract or a legal document. It was a resolution, a bill of grievances, and a manifesto, not a law, not a compact, not a contract. If there were any language in the Declaration that amounted to a contract or compact, you'd quote it. You don't, there isn't, and you're woofing.
First the Articles, and then the Constitution, provided an operating agreement between the nation's semi-sovereign states. [Weasel-words underlined.]
They were, and are, sovereign.
No state ever existed outside of the Union. This includes Texas, Hawaii, and other area thay may have as part of other sovereignties, or as sovereign entities themselves, as they were not part of the Union at that time.
You contradict yourself because your wilful, buncombious refusal to face the fact of State sovereignty has led you to twist yourself into a pretzel of self-contradiction. I think I'll let your words blaze forth their inadequacy by themselves, and confine myself to noting the obvious -- that you are definitively, ontologically, and comprehensively wrong.