The Constitution refers to powers delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not the states. And one of those powers delegated to the United States was the power to admit states or deny them admission. Once allowed to join, the Constitution delegated to the United States the power to approve or disapprove any change in the status of the state. States cannot combine or split without Congressional approval. They cannot change their borders by a fraction of an inch with Congress' say-so. Implicit in this surely is the power to approve leaving the Union altogether.
I beg you, please spend some time studying contemporary writing from the 18th century. Start with the Federalist Papers. Try to understand the framework which our founders attempted to leave to us. It'll help make sense of some of our earlier history, if you were to do so.
I've read the Federalist papers. I've read the debates on the Constitutional convention. And I've read a lot of Madison's writings, and who better than he would know what the founders intended? And where you and your buddies try and confuse the issue is by claiming the right to secede and the right to unilaterally secede are the same thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. Secession with the approval of the other states may be a right allowed the states. Unilateral secession is not. Nobody agreed with that. Not Madison, not Hamilton, nobody.
Then how do you explain that the State of New Hampshire had an established Anglican Church, supported by tax dollars, until sometime after 1810 - More than 20 years after the Federal Government was created, well past the passage of the First Amendment?
I'm not aware of the matter ever being brought before the Supreme Court.
I think, if you were to look at law commentaries of the day, you'd find that the laws made under the Constitution were far more limited in scope than your position would suggest they were.
Reading the decisions of the Marshall Supreme Court would indicate otherwise.
I am terribly sorry, my friend, but you are operating under a completely mistaken understanding of the American concept of delegation of powers. The powers granted to the Federal government are granted to them not by the Constitution, which is a non-living instrument, similar to a treaty; but, by the States, which are the sovereign signatories TO that treaty.
You will find NO, and I cannot stress this enough, contemporary resources, books, newspaper articles, or other material from the timeframe surrounding the ratification of the Constitution, that would suggest ANYTHING similar to the position you are taking, my friend, and I urge you to go back and look at the DIRECT historical record if you don't believe me. Original sources, original sources, original sources!
The States agreed, under the Articles of Confederation and the Acts of the united States in Congress Assembled (hereafter, the Confederacy Congress), that the matter of borders should be something that should be negotiated by the States in joint Congress. The reason for this is not because the Constitution is somehow supreme, but because the States were in disagreement over where their borders began and where they ended (due to the vague way in which the Colonies boundaries were laid out by ROYAL Charter). Remember - These original borders were accepted by the Confederacy Congress, and were modified due to negotiations between the Sovereign states which participated in said Congress.
On the topic of the admission of States, this is once again not some area in which the Constititution is somehow supreme, but this is a method by which the States, who retained their Sovereignty but DELEGATED CERTAIN POWERS to the Federal government, decided to JOINTLY determine which areas should be admitted to the Confederacy (and later, the Federal union) on equal terms as them.