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?
“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?”
OK, but you have to look to the Constitution, right? Isn’t that what’s it for?
The Constitution describes how to document is ratified and how it goes into effect. The Constitution describes how subsequent states are to be admitted to the Union by Congress. The Constitution does not describe how congress allows states to leave the Union. (Obviously, that means it doesn’t have the power.) The Constitution also describes limitations of the powers of the states (Art I, sec. 9). Nothing in the Constitution prohibits states from withdrawing or confers a power upon congress to prevent it. The 9th and 10th Amendments reserve to the states and the people all powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution.
Why is this so hard?
Which along with the 13th and the 15th was a mockery of the constitutional process. One does not get ratification of an amendment by pointing guns at people. The pointing of guns renders "consent" null and void, because it is accomplished through duress.
This is an old principle of law that was deliberately ignored at the time because a valid process would not render the result the Dictator in Washington decreed.