[Captain Jack Aubrey]

What courts? And so what. The courts said blacks were only mere property and could never be citizens.

Here’s what the Constitution says:

9th Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

But that doesn’t matter either. Just like the 1st and 2nd Amendments don’t matter. They simply memorialize pre-existing natural rights.

Any state joining the Union could withdraw as a matter of right; the right is the same right that allowed the state to agree to ratify.

The Constitution was NOT a suicide pact, after all.

[DoodleDawg]

What courts? And so what. The courts said blacks were only mere property and could never be citizens.

Hence the 14th Amendment.

Any state joining the Union could withdraw as a matter of right; the right is the same right that allowed the state to agree to ratify.

With the exception of the original 13 states, the rest of the states didn't join anything and ratified nothing. They were allowed to join and only after a majority of the other states, as expressed by a vote in both houses of Congress, agreed to let them in. Shouldn't leaving require the same thing?

[rockrr]

The Constitution was NOT a suicide pact, after all.

That's right. That's why Lincoln had no option but to stop the insurrectionists who attempted to destroy our union.