Of course, A. and B. themselves are worthy of grievance because they were/are impossible limitations to overcome.
Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of the union of the states being permanent. This was not an oversight by any means. Indeed, when New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia ratified the Constitution, they specifically stated that they reserved the right to resume the governmental powers granted to the United States. Their claim to the right of secession was understood and agreed to by the other ratifiers, including George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention and was also a delegate from Virginia. In his book Life of Webster Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge writes, “It is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton to Clinton and Mason, who did not regard the new system as an experiment from which each and every State had a right to peaceably withdraw.” A textbook used at West Point before the Civil War, A View of the Constitution, written by Judge William Rawle, states, “The secession of a State depends on the will of the people of such a State.”
Well into the 19th century, the United States was still viewed by many as an experimental confederation from which states could secede just as they had earlier acceded to it. It took a bloody war to prove them wrong.
Fascinating Fact: It is significant that no Confederate leader was ever brought to trial for treason. A trial would have brought a verdict on the constitutional legality of secession. Federal prosecutors were satisfied with the verdict that had been decided in battle.
Post unpleasantness, Jefferson Davis demanded a trial and was not granted one.
It is my opinion that the Free Republic Lincoln Coven thinks that was a historical mistake, and nothing would please them more than President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robt. E. Lee swinging form a rope. It is a personal fantasy of theirs that they share.
A trial was held on the legality of the pretended secession. Texas v. White. The rebels lost that too.
The Articles of Confederation were perpetual. The Union of the current constitution was to make a more perfect Union. A perpetual union made more perfect.... That is where we are.
I'd say they understood that the system might fail, and this would leave the states independent, but it's possible that Lodge goes too far in ascribing to the founders a definite belief that states could simply pull out at their own wish whenever they wanted to.
Lodge didn't believe that the secessionists of 1860 (or 1830) were right. From the same book:
When South Carolina began her resistance to the tariff in 1830, times had changed, and with them the popular conception of the government established by the Constitution. It was now a much more serious thing to threaten the existence of the Federal government than it had been in 1799, or even in 1814. The great fabric which had been gradually built up made an overthrow of the government look very terrible; it made peaceable secession a mockery, and a withdrawal from the Union equivalent to civil war.