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.
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.
Once a state withdrew from the Union formed by the Constitution, the Constitution no longer applied to it. Otherwise it would possibly be trapped in a Union with other states that might be taking advantage of it in major ways.
The Constitution of the Confederacy was largely based on the 1787 US Constitution. Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, said the following in an August 29, 1863 letter, addressee unknown.
Constitutional liberty can be achieved and secured only by maintaining and defending written and well defined limitations on the powers of all who are in authority. Such are the limitations in our constitution. That chart of our liberties was made for war as well as peace. Our first, chief and controlling object in every "plan" or act, should be to maintain the constitution. Secession was resorted to as the only means to preserve the principles of the constitution inviolate.