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Those states were never truly out of the Union, never acted as if they were and, in Rhode Island's case, wrote a letter begging not to be treated as a foreign nation. Washington assured him it would not be as all assumed this glitch would be overcome once the Know Nothings were removed from a position of sabotage.

No one has argued that ratification may not be universal. But even those states which did NOT ratify were not out of the Union.

"The Truth is, that the great principles of the Constitution may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation....If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of New Powers to the Union, than in the invigoration of its Original Powers." JM

Those states were never truly out of the Union, never acted as if they were and, in Rhode Island's case, wrote a letter begging not to be treated as a foreign nation.

As soon as they ratified the Constitution, they were out of the old "perpetual" Union.

So which Union are we talking about?

Can't be in both simultaneously -- States aren't quarks or neutrinos.

Your basic problem is, you just don't have an argument. The Constitution is the only Union worth talking about when you start to talk about 1860. And no, its Union did not predate the States, and no, there was no "mystery BS" about the Union: sign on the dotted line, you're in. Resign, you're out.

The Confederate States resigned from the Union by Acts of the People (with the exception of Arkansas, which might have had a problem legally, since they seceded by an act of the legislature), and those Acts of the People amended, modified, and abrogated their previous and symmetrical Acts of ratification.

The Constitution was an agreement among the States on paper. It wasn't a mystical document. It didn't command the States, and the Declaration of Independence didn't command the States to sign it. Nobody commanded the States to sign the Declaration of Independence or ratify the Constitution. It's just shills and intellectual three-card monte artists like you who go around telling us that States were nothing, States are nothing, yada yada yada, hear my voice and obey, I am Vigo!!

Next you're going to be telling us that the States didn't even have the right to ratify the Constitution, but only to submit.

But even those states which did NOT ratify were not out of the Union.

By your and Farber's definition, Washington could have marched troops into RI and NC and forced them to ratify at gunpoint (them being members of the "union" and all).

It's lunacy at it's finest. Keep posting.