Cohens v. Virginia.
"That the United States form, for many, and for most important purposes, a single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these respects, is the government of the Union. It is their government and in that character, they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects, and in many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects it is competent.
The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory. The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."
--Chief Justice John Marshall, 1821
It's mighty cheesy to wait 40 years and then say you don't agree.
Walt
In its considerations, the court stated, "The writ of error is given rather than an appeal, because it is the more usual mode of removing suits at common law; and because, perhaps, it is more technically proper where a single point of law, and not the whole case, is to be re-examined."
In considering the writ of error in the case of Cohens, a case about the right to sell lottery tickets in Virginia, the single point of law re-examined by the Supreme Court was not the right of a state to secede from the union.
The Court said:
Cohens v. Virginia
6 Wheat. 264 (1821 )
Mr. Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a writ of error to a judgment rendered in the Court of Hustings for the borough of Norfolk, as an information for selling lottery tickets, contrary to an act of the Legislature of Virginia. In the State Court, the defendant claimed the protection of an act of Congress.
The counsel for the defendant in error have . . . laid down the general proposition, that a sovereign independent State is not suable, except by its own consent.
This general proposition will not be controverted.