A lame reply, but I can see you're struggling. Then why didn't the Preamble start "We the People of the Several States"? That would negate your amendment requirement. Instead it starts "We the People of the United States" making it clear that it was in that role the peope would ratify the Constitution, and that the states were not.
It IS described as an agreement between the states
No. If so then the Constitution should read "Ratification of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution..." Instead, as Chief Justice Marshall pointed out, the people of the United States, meeting in conventions held in their respective states, ratified the document.
Perhaps you should ask the Great Karnak why the founders chose certain words, it was simply so that specific states would not be enumerated. Secondly, as Justices Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy and Rehnquist noted in US Term Limits, Inc., et al. v Thorton et al. noted above, there is no provision for the people en masse of the "United" States (plural) to act - ever.
Madison noted in Federalist No. 46, '[m]any considerations, besides those suggested on a former occasion, seem to place it beyond doubt, that the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective States.' Later he notes that states would be at odds with the federal government,
On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the Foederal Government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people, their repugnance and perhaps refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union, the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State, the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose in any State difficulties not to be despised; would form in a large State very serious impediments, and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the Foederal Government would hardly be willing to encounter.He continues, stating that states could resist forced military intrusions by the federal government,
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the Foederal Government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State Governments with the people on their side would be able to repel the danger.The states joined severally and independently - a union of states, they did not become a single mass of people.
If so then the Constitution should read "Ratification of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution..." Instead, as Chief Justice Marshall pointed out, the people of the United States, meeting in conventions held in their respective states, ratified the document.
Wrong. As the Constitution states, '[t]he Ratification of the Conventions of nine States [not one consolidated state or people], shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same [meaning more than one party].' The people of New York could not ratify for Georgia nor vice versa. The people were not amalgamated into one body politic - they were independent of each other.