Section. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Which is exactly right, and why all of this is happening.
The federal government was given specific mandates in their compact with the States. They cannot have it both ways: sole responsibility for a task, but abdicating their duty to perform that task.
It's a breach of contract.
Lincoln fabricated the whole "you can't get out of the contract" argument to legitimize his slaughter of Southern white males. But if we are all going to be held to it, then by God hold them to it.
The current federal government is engaging in behavior that is prohibited to even the lowliest police recruit: malfeasance. Worse, they are using force to prevent anyone from correcting that malfeasance.
Thus the "federal government" - people who swore an oath to uphold laws - is deligitimzed.
The States have every right at this point in history to shut down the existing federal union and re-negotiate (or not) the compact between themselves.