[rockrr]

Do you honestly think the Constitution would have been ratified if it had said a state could not leave or could only leave with the approval of states that might be oppressing it?

Yes. If only because the alternative was unthinkable.

[cowboyway]

If only because the alternative was unthinkable.

It makes sense that you union card holding, liberal yankees would think that free will is 'unthinkable'.

[rustbucket]

[me]: Do you honestly think the Constitution would have been ratified if it had said a state could not leave or could only leave with the approval of states that might be oppressing it?

[you]: Yes. If only because the alternative was unthinkable.

Large numbers of delegates to the ratification conventions voted against ratification, so it was not unthinkable. In New York's case, the final vote was 30 to 27, but there were seven or eight Anti-Federalists who abstained in that vote. They were willing to let the convention ratify the Constitution so long as the ratification document had all the clarifying statements about what the Constitution meant, such as the reassumption of governance statement, a statement that the people capable of bearing arms could bear them, and various other clarifying statements.