2. The Declaration of Independence is nothing less than a secessionist document.
Which formally meant war. The Declaration enumerated the various attempts to petition the Crown for redress to which the Crown responded with force. The Colonies asked for basic representation and were denied. The Southern states had full representation yet when they didn’t get their way decided to take their ball and run home to Mommy. They apparently thought they could have their cake and eat it too. They were wrong.
3. Furthermore, three states (Rhode Island, New York, and Virginia retained the right of secession in their act approving the Constitution.
They did no such thing. They simply reserved the rights not granted to the Federal Government. The passage of the Bill of Rights, specifically the 9th and 10th amendments, essentially made those resolutions moot.
Our ultimate defense against the federal government is the right of secession.
Wrong. Our next to the last defense is the Constitution. Our final defense is rebellion. We are a nation of laws and those laws are meaningless if some can choose to ignore them at their pleasure by using tortured legal arguments --- be it the Federal Government or State Governments. There is not now, nor has their ever been, a right of secession. That would be anarchy because it would mean that the law only applies on your terms. If you don’t like that fact, call for a Constitutional Convention and make the changes that would allow secession.
4. Among the Founding Fathers there was no doubt. The United States had just seceded from the British Empire, exercising the right of the people to "alter or abolish" – by force, if necessary – a despotic government.
What’s your point? The force part was necessary if the South wanted to secede. It wasn't legal to do so just as it wasn’t legal under British Law for the Colonies to revolt against the King. Lincoln was much kinder than George III would have been. He didn't order any or the rebel leaders hung. He legally could have.
5. The Declaration of Independence is the most famous act of secession in our history, though modern rhetoric makes "secession" sound somehow different from, and more sinister than, claiming "independence".
It wasn't the Declaration of Secession. It was Independence and it didn’t occur until after a full year of war and the arrival in New York harbor of the biggest naval armada in history to put down that rebellion. Unlike the Slaveocrats in the South who talked big and hid behind bogus legal arguments while others did the fighting, the guys that signed the Declaration of Independence had real guts. They were rebels and were proud of it. They didn't pretend to be otherwise.
5. The original 13 states formed a "Confederation," under which each state retained its "sovereignty, freedom, and independence." The Constitution didn 't change this; each sovereign state was free to reject the Constitution.
Wrong. By the agreement of all 13 at the Constitutional convention, only 9 of the 13 needed to approve the new Constitution and that decision was then completely and irrevocably binding on the others whether they ever approved it or not. (Kind of blows the unconditional states rights argument out of the water, doesn’t it.?)
6. The new powers of the federal government were "granted" and "delegated" by the states....
What is it about the words We the People don't you understand. The Constitution was not a contract between sovereign states but an agreement among all the people of the United States. It didn't say We the States. It is our contract, as a people, with the central government, not the state's contract. The proof of this is the fact that you, as a private citizen, can directly petition the federal government. You do not need to go through your state government to do so. By the same token, the Federal government can come directly to your aid if your rights are being violated. They do not need to go through the state government to do so.
Ahhh, you do understand. They did not surrender the right to secede. And you go on to say that it's now covered by the 9th and 10th Amendments. So which one is it? Where does the Constitution prohibit secession? Or better yet, where does it state that it's a federal right and the states no longer possess it?
Sorry, Article VII of the Constitution states, "[t]he Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same." We discussed this previously, it took the ratification of 9 states to create the new government. The Constitution would only apply to the states that ratified it, or else why bother ratification after 9 had done so. For example, if another friend and I drew up a contract that stated that we agreed to pool all our money, property and belongings, would that be binding on you without your signature? Not until you signed it.
Your assertion that the majority of the framers intended a forced union seems unlikely, although some surely did.
Further, you have the burden that the Constitution says nothing about state secession. Considering that everyone was becoming very proficient at it(seceding), doesn't it seem logical they would at least mention it in the Constitution?
If this is what the framers meant, as eloquent as they were. They would have spelled it out. "In order to form a more perfect perpetual Union" or "In order to form a perpetual Union, made more perfect" or some such phrase. There were no shortages of wordsmiths.
Yet, it does not prohibit or authorize secession.
It does not authorize the government to punish a state for seceding. In fact, they specifically rejected a proposal to punish states not in compliance in 1787. The proposal reads
"to call forth the force of the union against any member of the union, failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof."
James Madison states in his opposition, "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
Also, New York was specific in it's language to return rule back to the State if needed.