If Secession Was Illegal - then How Come...?

The Patriotist ^ | 2003 | Al Benson, Jr.

[Aurelius]

Over the years I've heard many rail at the South for seceding from the 'glorious Union.' They claim that Jeff Davis and all Southerners were really nothing but traitors - and some of these people were born and raised in the South and should know better, but don't, thanks to their government school 'education.'

Frank Conner, in his excellent book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 deals in some detail with the question of Davis' alleged 'treason.' In referring to the Northern leaders he noted: "They believed the most logical means of justifying the North's war would be to have the federal government convict Davis of treason against the United States. Such a conviction must presuppose that the Confederate States could not have seceded from the Union; so convicting Davis would validate the war and make it morally legitimate."

Although this was the way the federal government planned to proceed, that prolific South-hater, Thaddeus Stevens, couldn't keep his mouth shut and he let the cat out of the bag. Stevens said: "The Southerners should be treated as a conquered alien enemy...This can be done without violence to the established principles only on the theory that the Southern states were severed from the Union and were an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war...No reform can be effected in the Southern States if they have never left the Union..." And, although he did not plainly say it, what Stevens really desired was that the Christian culture of the Old South be 'reformed' into something more compatible with his beliefs. No matter how you look at it, the feds tried to have it both ways - they claimed the South was in rebellion and had never been out of the Union, but then it had to do certain things to 'get back' into the Union it had never been out of. Strange, is it not, that the 'history' books never seem to pick up on this?

At any rate, the Northern government prepared to try President Davis for treason while it had him in prison. Mr. Conner has observed that: "The War Department presented its evidence for a treason trial against Davis to a famed jurist, Francis Lieber, for his analysis. Lieber pronounced 'Davis will not be found guilty and we shall stand there completely beaten'." According to Mr. Conner, U.S. Attorney General James Speed appointed a renowned attorney, John J. Clifford, as his chief prosecutor. Clifford, after studying the government's evidence against Davis, withdrew from the case. He said he had 'grave doubts' about it. Not to be undone, Speed then appointed Richard Henry Dana, a prominent maritime lawyer, to the case. Mr. Dana also withdrew. He said basically, that as long as the North had won a military victory over the South, they should just be satisfied with that. In other words - "you won the war, boys, so don't push your luck beyond that."

Mr. Conner tells us that: "In 1866 President Johnson appointed a new U.S. attorney general, Henry Stanburg. But Stanburg wouldn't touch the case either. Thus had spoken the North's best and brightest jurists re the legitimacy of the War of Northern Aggression - even though the Jefferson Davis case offered blinding fame to the prosecutor who could prove that the South had seceded unconstitutionally." None of these bright lights from the North would touch this case with a ten-foot pole. It's not that they were dumb, in fact the reverse is true. These men knew a dead horse when they saw it and were not about to climb aboard and attempt to ride it across the treacherous stream of illegal secession. They knew better. In fact, a Northerner from New York, Charles O'Connor, became the legal counsel for Jeff Davis - without charge. That, plus the celebrity jurists from the North that refused to touch the case, told the federal government that they really had no case against Davis or secession and that Davis was merely being held as a political prisoner.

Author Richard Street, writing in The Civil War back in the 1950s said exactly the same thing. Referring to Jeff Davis, Street wrote: "He was imprisoned after the war, was never brought to trial. The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and that the South had got a raw deal." At one point the government intimated that it would be willing to offer Davis a pardon, should he ask for one. Davis refused that and he demanded that the government either give him a pardon or give him a trial, or admit that they had dealt unjustly with him. Mr. Street said: "He died 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing." If Davis was as guilty as they claimed, why no trial???

Had the federal government had any possible chance to convict Davis and therefore declare secession unconstitutional they would have done so in a New York minute. The fact that they diddled around and finally released him without benefit of the trial he wanted proves that the North had no real case against secession. Over 600,000 boys, both North and South, were killed or maimed so the North could fight a war of conquest over something that the South did that was neither illegal or wrong. Yet they claim the moral high ground because the 'freed' the slaves, a farce at best.

[lentulusgracchus]

Most states joined the Union under Article IV not some.

In 1860, it was 13 of 30, so don't try my patience.

And the original 13 ratified the Constitution and agreed to abide by its provisions.

As long as they remained in the Union. Which they had the right, because they never gave it up, and you can't show me anywhere where they did, to leave.

[Non-Sequitur]

Still mad I see.

[lentulusgracchus]

I do some historic preservation work with a group that seeks to preserve an historic slave cabin....

You might be interested in some recent historical archaeology led by the Houston Archeological Society and the Texas Archeological Society on former plantations in Brazoria County, Texas. Before 1865 the area was approximately 90% black demographically because of the presence of numbers of sugar-cane plantations in the bottom-lands of the Brazos River. One of the prominent planters was Abner Jackson, whose family continued to work the plantations into the 1870's when the State used property taxes to seize numbers of large holdings like his. They were then transformed into (in the case of Jackson's principal residence) an insane asylum and state prison-farms. These prison farms still exist: Derrington and Retrieve Units of the Texas Department of Corrections used to be Jackson's Derrington and Retrieve plantations.

The TAS and HAS have excavated at Lake Jackson, the site of the former asylum, and uncovered much of the millworks and auxiliary buildings on the plantation, as well as the foundations of the main house. They have been interested to compare physical remains of the slave period with construction carried out with convict labor, and the comparison shows the slaves' workmanship in a good light. They have also collected and documented great numbers of artifacts associated with various periods of the site's use, and I think by now they will have published the site, although excavation was still in progress as of four or five years ago, the last time I heard about it.

For your possible interest. The HAS, by the way, is sponsored by the University of Houston and meets on the campus of the University of St. Thomas.

[lentulusgracchus]

Not mad enough to stop calling you on it.

[BlueNgold]

I find it somewhat odd that schools regularly teach that Lincoln performed a bold act by suspending 'Habeus Corpus' but they never explain why. I remember asking a teacher in High School, and was never given a clear answer, mostly because the general public is unaware of the reason.

On the eve of the civil war Maryland, a southern slave state, had the requisite votes to secede and had scheduled a vote on the matter. President Lincoln was informed of this and decided to act. He dispatched Union troops to the MD legislature and immediately suspended the HC requirements. The troops surrounded the legislature, and effectively imprisoned them. None were allowed to leave until they had registered their vote against secession. Once the majority had been recorded, and MD secession defeated, the remaining were allowed to leave.

Why? Quite simply if MD has successfully departed the Union then D.C. would have been under southern control. The entire government apparatus of the north would have been under southern control. In short, there would have been no war; it would have been over before it started. No recognized legal scholar has ever effectively asserted this act was constitutional, but it is accepted and even glorified because it is the one clearly recognizable moment where the Union was in peril. Of all the shots fired in the Civil War the one that saved the Union was fired from President Lincoln's quill.

[razorbak]

The South had become too dependent on slavery. I say that as an urepentant Southerner. Slavery would have eventually ended, but it has forever tarnished the South's claims of the moral high ground. And yes I am fully aware of the absolute duplicity, cynicism and hypocrisy of the exploitation of the issue by many Northerners with ulterior motives. The shame of it is that had the South been successful, one positive by-product would be a weaker central government, and the country would not be as far down the road toward socialism and the radical liberal agenda that has been so efficiently applied by corrupt national courts and politicians. This nation has paid a bitter price for slavery, and continues to today with the rampant welfare system and anti-constitutional minority voting block.

[lentulusgracchus]

This nation has paid a bitter price for slavery, and continues to today with the rampant welfare system and anti-constitutional minority voting block.

If there'd been no slavery at all in the South, there would still have been a civil war. The Northern industrialists and old Whigs were determined to wrest control of the national agenda away from the South permanently, and they'd have picked a fight over something -- the Morrill Tariff, for instance.

In the 1830's the issue had been Nullification, which was provoked by the Tariff of Abominations.

The North was looking for a way to knock the South out of the box permanently. That's what civil wars are made of.

[Non-Sequitur]

OK, then in 1860 it was 13 out of 33 states.

[Capriole]

Thank you. I'll send this on to some friends who are working in historical/material culture research in Texas, as well as to a young gentleman I know who has started a foundation to preserve historic black structures and educate the public about their use.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I see no alternative for a person concerned about the strength and survivability of the United States of America to being Hamiltonian. The same classes which supported Jefferson are exactly the ones which are Democrats today.

Only for rich, white slavers was there more freedom under Jeffersonian "democracy" for the rest there was rigid poverty and ignorance for the poor whites and tyranny no American would accept on top of that for the Blacks.

There is no doubt that I passionately hate the fraud that was the Old South and its despicable leadership which brought that fair land and its peoples an economic and financial disaster from which it still suffers. That leadership will never earn any respect from me since it was thoughtless and pathetic to its core.

Since I am Southern born and raised with many family members still there, I love the vast majority of the people (none of whom have anything to do with a defunct social structure) from the Old Confederacy and am dismayed to see the falsehoods and deceptions accepted and spread by some who do live in that region. My hatred is concentrated only upon the "Peculiar Institution" and its defenders.

Modern capitalism and pre-feudal slavery were on a collision course and little, if anything, after 1783 was done by Jefferson to prevent it. One can even blame Hamilton for trading the capital location for the financial system, making it easier for the South to become too politically powerful. Had the capital remained in NY there would have been no necessity for massive forces to protect D.C. This would have allowed a much more rapid capture of Richmond and the destruction of the Rebel armies shortening the war.

This is an example of what I am saying with regard to his influence, it is phenomenol when you trace it out.

You are correct, Hamiltonianism won the Civil War by fostering the creation of idustrial capitalism and, of all the Republican ideas, removal of slavery and preservation of the Union above all were most important. That is the essence of the Republican Party and shows its and his total committment for freedom for ALL. That is why he would never be a Democrat, the party of slavery. That and his aversion to the rampant corruption and falsehood which has always been the core of the Democratic Party.

If you believe he would have been a Democrat you should read more about him. It would be impossible for him to be a democrat. It is also false that the North was for Big Government and the South for Less government. The federal government was tiny before the War and only grew in response to the War not because of any Big Government philosophy of the Agrarian Republicans. The big cities were Democratic then, too. And the governments of the South were based upon repression of the slaves thus, its citizens were forced to serve in slave patrols or be fined and the intellectual life was strictly controlled so that anti-Slavery thinkers and thought was driven out. Mails opened and interfered with, the press destroyed if anti-Slavery.

Government was far closer to the Southerner and more oppressive because it was predicated upon the destruction of the freedom of millions of Blacks. The Elites which controlled them also bled the poor whites dry, severely restricted their political power and did nothing to alieviate their widespread lack of education.

This Ruling Class reminds me of the Russian Nobility in its blindness, loathing of honest work, fecklessness and total refusal to face the modern world. It also shared its fate and the World is better off for that.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The South had no "national agenda" other than expanding and preserving slavery. It is unthinkable without slavery. Slavery distorted the economy by pouring investment capital into slaves. It distorted its peoples' social development by institutionalizing the fiction that one race was superior to and deserving to own the other.

Without slavery the development of the South would have been much more like that of the north. Its industries would have grown under the tariff, its labor force would have been free and able to develop as that of the North. Slavery destroyed the South and crippled its people, in many ways, for the next hundred years.

If Hamiltonianism hadn't destroyed it during the War, it would have been some other modern industrial capitalist power since the system of slavery was in conflict with the entire Western world not just the Northern states. The Ruling Class would have never given up its slaves, voluntarily.

[Media Insurgent]

I'm going to start a bunch of threads making the case that Carthage was right during the Punic Wars and start pi$$ing and moaning about the "War of Roman Aggression" and generally playing woulda, shoulda, coulda about the whole thing. I figure if so many people are excited to play Monday Morning Quarterback over a war that ender almost 140 years ago, then there's got to be a ton of pent up demand over something that was over 2,000 years ago! Any "Neo-Carthaginians" out there care to join me?

[justshutupandtakeit]

It was Gov. George Clinton. There is no doubt that Hamilton's forces could well have led NY city out of NY state. While the constitution would have prevented that the Articles did not. Not only had the constitution's ratification created the new Union but NY would have been out of it. That is what made George throw in the towel. Though there is no doubt Hamilton would have split the state to rejoin the United States.

There was no necessity in the Constitution for prevention of unilateral secession per se, its interdictions were throughout with the bans upon states associating in alliances, restrictions on making war, specification of the ability of the United States to put down rebellions, and insurrections and the prior acceptance of the Perpetuity of the United States even under the Articles. This was to be an eternal Union not some will-o-the-wisp that is here today and gone tomorrow. All the founders accepted that. Though I am primarily concerned what the greatest: Washington, Hamilton, Marshall and Madison, thought.

Removal of state sovereignty was absolutely crucial to the survival of the nation. That has been shown by the history which followed. The 9th and 10th amendments are little more that face-saving gestures to the recalcitrants and have been shown to have little, if any, impact upon the development of the nation. As far as I can see, as I have stated many times to the consternation of those opposed to American power, they are essentially irrelevent. Whether I want them to be or not. I have asked often for those believing them significant to point to the legal cases indicating my error. So far, none have been able too.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Great post. Not irrelevant at all if you look geographically at the last election's electorial college results. WHAT IF today a state decided to seceed? Would we really take up arms again? Walter Williams believes we are already two countries. We are certainly developing a very harsh ideological split. Now we just need for geography and ideology to line up a little better, so that those of us that love freedom and detest heavy handed government, can part with those that would impose via government fiat their will on us. It may be a stretch, but with all levels of government taking 60% or more of our income, we are fighting slavery.

[capitan_refugio]

"Fellow-Countrymen:

"At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

A. Lincoln
March 4, 1865

[capitan_refugio]

It is interesting, though, what Robert E. Lee observed in 1861:

"The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private gain. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions; and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union," so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution. . . . Still a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved, and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and save in defence will draw my sword on none.

I tried to catch the full context of his letter, not just the usual excerpts.

[lentulusgracchus]

The South had no "national agenda" other than expanding and preserving slavery. It is unthinkable without slavery.

Duh! How about, everyone was about expansion, and everyone was about taking his property, institutions, language, and politics with him when he moved into the Territories? You take a commonplace and make it "all about slavery", which is the McPhersonian Lie. It was "all about a lot of things"!

The whole nation participated in expansion. For the Southern planters to have accepted that they couldn't move to new plantations in the Territories would have meant acceptance that they were second-class citizens, from their point of view. It would be like saying that New Englanders couldn't travel west with their furniture and their Bibles -- in the law, there was no difference between a slaveholding Southerner's property, and a New Englander's. What the Northwest Ordinance did, was to impair Southerners' use of their property, without first modifying the legal status of the property -- bass-ackwards, in other words. The intention was to reserve United States Territories for free farmers, to the detriment of planters, and the exclusion of slavery was basically a gimmick without a constitutional basis. Job One for the free-soil and freeholder political factions was to impair slavery constitutionally (as in, the Thirteenth Amendment) in order to protect the anti-slavery laws. The failure to address first things first led to Dred Scott and the exposure of the entire Northern position on slavery to the rebuke of illegality and factional partisanship. Which it was.

Slavery distorted the economy by pouring investment capital into slaves.

"Distorted" is a value-loaded word, otherwise I agree with the general proposition, that it sucked up a lot of capital. On the other hand, what if all that capital had been mobilized and poured into that other 19th-century passion, which was labor-saving devices intended to reduce wages? If slavery hadn't vacuumed up all that capital, the deployment of that capital into union-breaking, wage-breaking devices might have turned the entire agricultural workforce, and the vast majority of the citizenry, into mendicant helots begging outside the wrought-iron gates of privilege. What if the Gilded Age had been even more intense than it was, and had started 40 years earlier? Don't just assume that "if things had been different, they'd be better." The English experience was a lot like what you posit, and for vast numbers of men and women who were driven off the land either into urban slums or into exile in the New World and Australasia, it was a bitter experience indeed -- and a lot of them died of it.

It distorted its peoples' social development by institutionalizing the fiction that one race was superior to and deserving to own the other.

The North eschewed slavery, but embraced racial theories enthusiastically enough to put down your assertion. Even Lincoln opined that blacks were not materially whites' equals: his contention was radical that they were morally whites' equals, and that they ought to be at least free, although he was less explicit about their having the franchise, because he had reservations about their intellectual maturity. That he thought Jefferson's words about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" ought to apply to blacks, put him at the cutting edge of what might pass for 19th-century liberalism, save for the white women who, generations before, and in defiance of custom, racial boundaries, and community opinion, had taken up with free black men and lived with them in (I should think usually) common-law marriage.

The rest of the community generally disagreed with Abolitionists who thought blacks ought to have the franchise.

Don't confuse the free-soilers' enthusiasm for shutting slavery out of the Territories, with any sort of liberal sentiment for giving ex-slaves the franchise, or anything that would pass as liberalism today. Their interest was entirely practical, and oriented toward the elimination of an important source of threatening economic competition.

Without slavery the development of the South would have been much more like that of the north. Its industries would have grown under the tariff, its labor force would have been free and able to develop as that of the North.

No, it wouldn't. The South had nothing like the mineral resources of the North -- just some coal seams and a little bit of iron ore, plus the Georgia gold fields, which were very modest. Its industries might have benefited from the Morrill Tariff, but it's arguable whether they'd have benefited enough, that they'd have been able to meet the economies of scale that Northern factories were achieving by scaling up and holding labor costs down.

After the cholera and yellowjack epidemics of the early 1800's, word got back to Europe about the unhealthful climate, and the South attracted far fewer Irish immigrants than the East Coast ports. So the South would have enjoyed less of a labor-cost advantage, and only transportation-cost advantages over Northern products. Too, capital was less extensively available in the South, since it tended to end up in New York banks, and there were fewer opportunities other than debt to persuade investors to keep their earnings at home. Except, as stipulated, putting more land into cotton.

If Hamiltonianism hadn't destroyed it during the War, it would have been some other modern industrial capitalist power since the system of slavery was in conflict with the entire Western world not just the Northern states.

Not necessarily true at all. The South was, until 1860, protected from foreign adventures by the United States Government.

The Ruling Class would have never given up its slaves, voluntarily.

The reflexive answer is yes, you're right -- but the planter class in northeastern Brazil, which answered closely in its structure and functioning to the planter class in the South, accepted manumission by imperial edict under the Braganca emperors without appealing to the sword. Whether they would have done so without the spectacle of the American Civil War is a question I don't have the answer to -- a Latin American historian would be needed to venture a useful opinion on whether, absent the ACW, the Brazilian planters would have acceded peacefully.

[lentulusgracchus]

I tried to catch the full context of his letter, not just the usual excerpts.

Yes, thank you, that doesn't happen often enough.

Robert E. Lee clearly anticipated by your citation and quotation, that the dissolution of the Union would lead to Civil War, that the North would fight. He was correct in this. There have been lively discussions about how the North, initially iffy on the subject of secession, came to its determination to fight, but I think that there were two factors that determined the outcome: a) Lincoln successfully baited Davis into opening fire first, which galvanized Northern opinion and essentially transformed secession from a political movement into a war, which IMHO was his objective all along -- even before he ran for office; and b) the Northern money interests recognized the danger to their own interests entailed in the departure of the South from the Union, and they spurred as much action as they could, IMHO, in the direction of retrieving the Southern States by force.

Lee was correct in his statement that the South was exercising its natural right to revolutionize its affairs. He was incorrect about secession, and he was in error to prefer the intentions and opinions of the Founders to the sovereign voice of the People: vox populi, vox Dei. Either the People are sovereign, or we're all just kidding ourselves and we can just take it to the house.

The People acted correctly in convening conventions and scheduling plebiscites to determine whether to secede: such a determination was ultra vires any State's legislature, since they and all the officers of the States were bound by the Supremacy Clause to support the Constitution. An act of the People in their aspect as Sovereign, assembled in convention or in their voting precincts, was something else again, and I think Lee missed the distinction.

He also erred in using the quote, "perpetual union" -- that phrase is found in the Articles of Confederation but does not appear in the Constitution or its Preamble.

[lentulusgracchus]

Now we just need for geography and ideology to line up a little better, so that those of us that love freedom and detest heavy handed government, can part with those that would impose via government fiat their will on us. It may be a stretch, but with all levels of government taking 60% or more of our income, we are fighting slavery.

I think the tax burden is only about 40% in all, but your point is valid at any level. No restriction means no limitiations means no freedom.

As to splitting the sheets, I'd make Blue America settle for everything east of the Hudson.....that would bust 'em up enough that we could deport the rest of them and get the West Coast and Michigan back from the libs.

[capitan_refugio]

"He also erred in using the quote, "perpetual union" -- that phrase is found in the Articles of Confederation but does not appear in the Constitution or its Preamble."

Correct, the phrase "perpetual union" is conspicuously absent in the Preamble, but the concept is retained by the phrase "... secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and out posterity."

Correct me if I am wrong, but did not the US Supreme Court site the Preamble in the Texas vs White (1869) decision, using the phrase "... indestructability of the Union ... "? (I believe the context of that decision was to abbrogate any and all actions of the secessionist Texas government.)