BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES:
“In governments whose original foundations cannot be traced to the certain and undeniable criterion of an original written compact”
[snip]
“This memorable precedent was soon followed by the far greater number of the states in the union, and led the way to that instrument, by which the union of the confederated states has since been completed, and in which, as we shall hereafter endeavour to shew, the sovereignty of the people, and the responsibility of their servants are principles fundamentally, and unequivocally, established; in which the powers of the several branches of government are defined, and the excess of them, as well in the legislature, as in the other branches, finds limits, which cannot be transgressed without offending against that greater power from whom all authority, among us, is derived; to wit, the PEOPLE.”
[snip]
“These, and several others, are objects to which the power of the legislature does not extend; and should congress be so unwise as to pass an act contrary to these restrictions, the other powers of the state are not bound to obey the legislative power in the execution of their several functions, as our author expresses it: but the very reverse is their duty, being sworn to support the constitution, which unless they do in opposition to such encroachments, the constitution would indeed be at an end.
Here then we must resort to a distinction which the institution and nature of our government has introduced into the western hemisphere; which, however, can only obtain in governments where power is not usurped but delegated, and where authority is a trust and not a right .... nor can it ever be truly ascertained where there is not a written constitution to resort to. A distinction, nevertheless, which certainly does exist between the indefinite and unlimited power of the people, in whom the sovereignty of these states, ultimately, substantially, and unquestionably resides, and the definite powers of the congress and state legislatures, which are severally limited to certain and determinate objects, being no more than emanations from the former, where, and where only, that legislative essence which constitutes sovereignty can be found.”
What makes the State; to wit, the PEOPLE.!
That assertion is explicitly contradicted by John Quincy Adams, whom you quote, and who in your own excerpt makes an explicit distinction between the states and the PEOPLE. He also says here in the same pasage::
Adams observed: "In the calm hours of self-possession, the right of a State to nullify an act of Congress, is too absurd for argument and too odious for discussion. The right of a state to secede from the Union, is equally disowned by the principles of the Declaration of Independence." Adams's fundamental argument was that no right of state secession or nullification existed under the Constitution because the right to revolution was a natural right of the people. "To the people alone is there reserved, as well the dissolving, as the constituent power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience,
The right to secede, According to JQA, belongs to the PEOPLE, not the states. The reason is that states do not have rights; they have POWERS. Only the PEOPLE have rights.
Cordially,