Where exactly is that agreement to remain in the Union? Perhaps you are thinking of the perpetual Union of the Articles of Confederation. That didn't last very long, and the word perpetual was left out of the Constitution.
The new government formed by the Constitution started taxing imports from late ratifiers North Carolina and Rhode Island as they did foreign countries. In that same period, President George Washington appeared before the First Congress and refused to take action on some matters pertaining to Indians in North Carolina because, as he said, North Carolina was not a member of the Union.
I think of other official documents that said something was perpetual that did not turn out to be. The Treaty of Paris (1783) that settled the war between England and the former colonies said in Article 7 that the treaty established a perpetual peace between the two countries. Official representatives from both countries signed the document. But, of course, the fact that the countries agreed to the treaty did not result in perpetual peace as the War of 1812 showed.
I remember also The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England; May 19, 1643 (Link). It said in part:
The said United Colonies for themselves and their posterities do jointly and severally hereby enter into a firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity for offence and defence, mutual advice and succor upon all just occasions both for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel and for their own mutual safety and welfare.
I think that Confederacy died out sometime after King Philip's War of 1676. Massachusetts virtually wiped out the Indian tribe they were fighting in that war, and they ended up making slaves out of the Indians they captured.
I think at best the term "perpetual" in such documents expresses the hope that whatever it is will be long lasting. But often it is not.
Perhaps Alexander Hamilton would disagree with you on punishing seceding states:
It has been well observed, that to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single State. This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts or any large State should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would not they have influence to procure assistance, especially from those States which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this present to our view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself! Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a Government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -- a Government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a Government.
The Constitution did not give the government the power to coerce states. Coercion was voted down, if I remember correctly. The courts before the war could not force state officials to enforce a federal law or a governor to extradite suspects to the state where they might have committed the crime. It might have been the governor's duty under the Constitution, but the Supreme Court ruled the federal government could not force the governor to do it if he refused.
Does a seceding state need the permission of other states in order to secede? Republicans proposed several amendments to that effect in 1860-1861 because such a requirement was not in the Constitution.
Suppose other states were oppressing the seceding state in some serious way. Should the oppressing states get to decide whether the oppressed state gets to secede? Maybe it is to their advantage not to let the state go.
Who gets to decide what is sufficient to justify secession? The Founders in several states felt they had the right to decide for themselves what is necessary for their happiness and whether to secede, not some court, not Congress, and not other states.
Who gets to decide what is necessary for your happiness? (I know. Your spouse if you have one.)
Secession is the supra-Constitutional action of a state to protect itself. It is not prohibited by the Constitution. John Taylor, who was raised by Edmund Randolph, the president of the Virginia Ratification Convention, wrote of the Constitution that:
In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed.
The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions.
Sorry for going on so long. I suspect that you've not heard some of these arguments before unless you have been following these threads.
Sorry, wrong Edmund. Edmund Pendleton was president of the Virginia Ratification Convention. Edmund Randolph was the governor of Virginia and a delegate to the convention.
Rather odd that you quote Hamilton’s assertion that coercing the states (by the federal) to be mad, when the war started with the states coercing the federal. After the war started, the US government had all rights and duties to put down the insurrection.
Projection is a sign of mental illness. Madness, if you will.
Yes.
From the Preamble to the Articles of Confederation:
First sentence, second paragraph: “Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled did on the fifteenth day of November in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America, agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States...”
Later, they expressly changed the agreement on Confederation, I know of nothing (authoritative or otherwise) from the time by the parties involved expressly stating a change to the agreement on perpetual Union.
Let's define "perpetual". For that I'll turn to Webster's 1828 dictionary:
PERPETUAL, a.1. Never ceasing; continuing forever in future time; destined to be eternal; as a perpetual covenant; a perpetual statute.
2. Continuing or continued without intermission; uninterrupted; as a perpetual stream; the perpetual action of the heart and arteries.
3. Permanent; fixed; not temporary; as a perpetual law or edict; perpetual love or amity, perpetual incense. Ex.30.
4. Everlasting; endless.
If you disagree with this definition let me know.
...President George Washington appeared before the First Congress and refused to take action on some matters pertaining to Indians in North Carolina because, as he said, North Carolina was not a member of the Union.
I'd be very interested in a source for that. It raises some questions. Did Congress agree with him? Who else agreed with him? Did North Carolina agree? Was it possibly a ploy to persuade North Carolina to ratify?
I think of other official documents that said something was perpetual that did not turn out to be.
That somebody else does or doesn't do something, or that everybody else does or doesn't do something, does not mean that the something is the thing to do.
From your quote of Hamilton: "This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a Government."
And you wrote: The Constitution did not give the government the power to coerce states.
Okay. If we're discussing secession, I don't think the States secede from the government, they secede from the Union, from the other States.
Food for further thought:
From Webster's 1828 dictionary (emphasis added):
COERCE,1. To restrain by force; to keep from acting, or transgressing, particularly by moral force, as by law or authority; to repress.
2. To compel; to constrain.
From the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, last clause (emphasis added):
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Does a seceding state need the permission of other states in order to secede?
Should the oppressing states get to decide whether the oppressed state gets to secede?
Who gets to decide what is sufficient to justify secession?
Those are the questions, or at least some of them.
Secession is the supra-Constitutional action of a state to protect itself.
Agreed that it is supra-Constitutional Which is why I think the Constitutional arguments, at least the ones I recall, are not relevant.
Regarding the John Taylor quote on the Constitution: Where does it address secession from the Union? I see where it addresses the relation of the States the federal government, and their right to alter it or revoke its commissions. It hints at the States relationship with each other, but I see nothing about secession.
Sorry for going on so long.
After what I've done, you have no reason to be sorry. It is difficult to respond to everything in something long though.