NS:Bingo.
"When, by the Declaration of Independence, [the nation of Virginia] chose to abolish their former organs of declaring their will, the acts of will already formally and constitutionally declared, remained untouched. For the nation was not dissolved, was not annihilated; its will, therefore, remained in full vigor; and on the establishing the new organs, first of a convention, and afterwards a more complicated legislature, the old acts of national will continued in force, until the nation should, by its new organs, declare its will changed." --Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1799. ME 10:126
"In this case, as in all others, the true principle will be quite as effectual to establish the just deductions, for before the revolution, the nation of Virginia had, by the organs they then thought proper to constitute, established a system of laws, which they divided into three denominations of 1, common law; 2, statute law; 3, Chancery: or if you please, into two only, of 1, common law; 2, Chancery."
Jeffersonian hyperbole not withstanding, there was no nation of Virginia. Prior to the revolution there was the colony of Virginia, which was what the crown and Jefferson and everyone else in Virginia identified it as. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence there was the state or commonwealth of Virginia within the nation known as the United States of America. This status was grated by the Articles of Confederation, and when the Articles were replaced the Virginia was still one of 13 states within the United States. Virginia never once existed as a free and independent and sovereign state outside the United States. Not before the revolution. Not during the revolution. Not afterwards. The colony of Virginia may have had laws and a legal system, and the state of Virginia has the same. But at no time did Virginia have the power to overrule British law, or treat with other nations as an equal, or declare war, or perform any of the other powers a sovereign nation could perform. So never having been an independent entity to begin with how can they delegate powers they never enjoyed to begin with?
Indeed they were States outside of the Union.
Counties and other municipal corporations were created by the States; but the States were not created by the United States, as the States existed as independent sovereignties before even the Union was formed. Words of US S CT Justice Nathan Clifford, Historical Evidence on the Origin and Nature of the Government of the United States, John Brown Dillon (New York, NY, SW Green, 1871), 28.
Under the Articles of Confederation each State retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, not expressly delegated to the United States. US S CT Justice Samuel Chase, Ibid., 28.
Before the new Constitution was adopted, she (Virginia) had as much right to treat and agree as any European government had. US S CT Justice John Catron, Ibid., 26.
That, a number of independent states may unite themselves by one common bond or confederacy, for the purposes of common defence and safety, and for the more perfect preservation of amity between themselves, without any of them ceasing to be a perfect, independent, and sovereign state, retaining every power, jurisdiction and right, which it has not expressly agreed shall be exercised in common by the confederacy of the states; and not by any individual state of the confederacy. St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries, Volume 1, Appendix D