So, you have a contract with someone, and they refuse to live up to that contract, but you are still obligated to remain in that contract and fulfill your part?
I realize “the other side” has a gun pointed at you, but that isn’t “legal”.
Only the original 13 would have any claim of preexistence outside the Union. And not even all of them had Constitutions in place prior to the Revolution.
“So, you have a contract with someone, and they refuse to live up to that contract, but you are still obligated to remain in that contract and fulfill your part?”
To make the metaphor apt you have to stipulate that the contract had an opt out clause, because implicitly the Constitution did according to the principle of state sovereignty and by not denying the states the right to leave. Also, not all the states agreed to the contract. I don’t see how Tom, Dick, and Harry, if they don’t have power of attourney, can bind me to anything. The ratification process stipulated 9 states necessary to make the Constitution law, but since there were more than 9 states I don’t see how the others would be considered bound by it. Nevermind.
Also again, not all contracts are legal. You can’t, for instance, contract to be someone’s salve. This is so because slavery is illegal, but also because of the principle that certain rights are inalienable. That is, you cannot transfer them to anyone else. They are yours and can never be sacrificed.
So even if the Constitution explicitly said the states were abandoning their sovereignty—which it didn’t—that would be improper, because even if certain powers are delegatable ultimate sovereignty is non-transferable. Anway, they didn’t. They and the people retained sovereignty. The contract was to be united under the Constitution for as long as it suited the parties.