[fortheDeclaration]

The 10th Amendment fallacy did not help the southerners in their defense of unilateral secession. There is NO RIGHT to unilateral secession.

No government could come together with the proviso that anyone and anytime could leave!

Even the Confederates could not survive that.

It would not be a compact of states but a coaliton of sovereign nations, more like the EU.

[capitan_refugio]

"No government could come together with the proviso that anyone and anytime could leave!"

Quite correct!

It is sometimes forgotten that by July 1776, the united American colonies had been at war with the United Kingdom for over one year (if you date the onset of the war for independence to begin with the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775). Within a few days (July 12) of the proclamation of the Declaration, John Dickinson had submitted his draft for what was to become the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/contcong/07-12-76.htm

Even then, the concept of a permanent Union of the former colonies was well established. Even then, the individual colonies/states were denied the full scope of sovereign powers, in favor of the nation.

[stand watie]

a coalition of SOVEREIGN STATES was PRECISELY what the 13 states had in mind. NONE of the states would have freely joined a government in the 18/19th century (after fighting GB for their FREEDOM), which they could not leave just as freely.

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