[republicanwizard]

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I really don't see the right to leave the union here.

[Sequoya]

The Constitution never gave the federal government the right to force any state to remain in the union. Therefore, the states retained the right to leave the union when the people of those states decided that it was in their interest to do so.

The Constitution would not have been ratified had there been a prohibition on leaving the union. New York and Virginia explicitly put that right into their ratification documents. Without NY and VA in the union there would have been no union and without the right to secede the people of those states would have never ratified the Constitution.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are very clear on the subject. If the Constitution does not specifically grant a power to the federal government the states retain that power.

There is no place in the Constitution that says no state may ever leave the union. Therefore, they have the right to leave just like they had the right to join or not join.

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

Amendment X
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.