“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?
Nobody had forgotten it in the subsequent 11 years after the Declaration was written.
What makes you think I haven't?
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.)
Why obviously? If the consent of the other states is required to join the Union to begin with, and consent of the other states is required for a state to split or combine with another or change their borders in any respect whatsoever then implied in that is that consent of the other states is required to leave as well.
The 9th and 10th Amendments reserve to the states and the people all powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution.
The need for the approval of the other states to leave is implied in Article I and Article IV. The courts have ruled that. Madison believed it. Who am I to disagree with them?
The right or power to break with the entire Constitution can't be a right or power like any other under that Constitution.
It would be a mockery of the whole Constitution if a state or locality or individual could simply declare that it no long applies to them whenever they don't like something.
Why is it so hard to realize that if a state is part of a country, it can't simply up and leave it at will whenever things don't go its own way?
Exit of one state or another is something that could be worked out by the whole country in Congress or a convention called by the states, and then everybody would accept it.