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They state very plainly that withdrawal from the Union was a power reserved by the People of the United States, in toto.

No they didn’t. The people were as Madison described them, represented by the states in their sovereign capacity.

No interpretation or divining or guessing as to intent. A plain reading and an open mind is all that’s needed.

Correct.

I offered the Corwin Amendment to this discussion and it was in place and offered BEFORE any secession.

Several states had already seceded before Lincoln’s Inaugural Address in which he endorsed the Corwin Amendment (which he had orchestrated anyway).

They knew the lack of enforcement meant their slave property would continue to escape to the north in increasing numbers. Only a Confederacy would offer a new national barrier that would be more effective in stopping the escapes.

How do you figure that? That is directly the opposite of what Lincoln and several other said. How were they going to police a 1500 mile long border? The second a slave crossed that border, they were in a foreign country that owed no duty to return the escaped slave as had been guaranteed by the fugitive slave act in the constitution. You have it exactly backwards. Slavery was more safe within the US than it would’ve been outside it.

I quote you chapter and verse on an issue and you deny it.

Then I ask readers to just make a plain reading and you agree, LOL.

“Several states had already seceded before Lincoln’s Inaugural Address”

As if the secessionists weren’t waiting on Lincoln’s move.... My point was that secession started as soon as Lincoln was elected, two months before. Again you cherry pick history to try to make a point, and fail.

“How were they going to police a 1500 mile long border?”

Agreed, but the South was seeing little enforcement as a part of the Union and felt that a new national border, rather than open state borders would be more secure.

“Slavery was more safe within the US than it would’ve been outside it.”

You think slavery was better protected within the Union than within the Confederacy? Nonsense.