When the States ratified the Constitution they never intended it to be any sort of national government. It was an agreement between individual sovereign's - united by compact. Most of the great legal minds ( before that ambulance chaser from Illinois changed the nature of government from "consent of the governed" into "consent or be shot" ) agree that the State government is/was government proper.
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The federal government then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations, and with each other. Their submission to it's operation is voluntary: it's councils, it's engagements, it's authority are theirs, modified, and united. It's sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent 52, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of it's functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent.
http://www.constitution.org/tb/t1d03000.htm
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Chief Justice Ellsworth:
"I want domestic happiness as well as general security. A General Government will never grant me this, as it cannot know my wants, nor relieve my distress. My State is only as one out of thirteen. Can they, the General Government, gratify my wishes? My happiness depends as much on the existence of my State Government as a new-born infant depends upon its mother for nourishment."
Fisher Ames:
"A consolidation of the States would subvert the new Constitution, and against which this article is our best security. Too much provision cannot be made against consolidation. The State Governments represent the wishes and feelings, and local interests of the people. They are the safeguard and ornament of the Constitution; they will protract the period of our liberties; they will afford a shelter against the abuse of power, and will be the natural avengers of our violated rights."
Judge Iredell:
"If Congress, previous to the Articles of Confederation, possessed any authority, it was an authority, as I have shown, derived from the people of each province, in the first instance." "The authority was not possessed by Congress, unless given by all the States." "I conclude, therefore, that every particle of authority, which originally resided either in Congress or in any branch of the State governments, was derived from the people who were permanent inhabitants of each province, in the first instance, and afterwards became citizens of each State; that this authority was conveyed by each body separately, and not by all the people in the several provinces or States jointly."
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Of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, in a series of Essays, addressed to Thomas Ritchie, by a distinguished citizen of Virginia, under the signature of "Locke," in February, 1833:
You all say, that it is absurd to pretend that a State can be in the Union and out of the Union at the same time; and that it is monstrous in a State to contend for all the advantages of the Union, as to certain laws, while she refuses to submit to the burthens imposed by other laws. Nothing in nature can be more perfectly self-evident than all this. It is not surprising that a man of General Jackson's measure of intellect and information should be deceived by such a superficial view of the subject: but we had a right to expect better things from a veteran in politics, like yourself. Remember, sir, that a law beyond the Constitution is no law at all, and there is no right any where to enforce it. A State which refuses to submit to such a pretended law, is strictly within the Union — because she is in strict obedience to the Constitution; and it is strange to say that she "refuses to submit to the burthens" imposed by any law which is not law at all. Here, then, you have a picture of Nullification. It secures to the State the right to remain in the Union, and to enjoy all the advantages which the Constitution and laws can afford — submitting, at the same time, to all which that Constitution and laws rightfully enjoin; while it "arrests the progress" of usurped power, by destroying the obligation of every pretended law which the Constitution does not authorise, and which, therefore, is not law. If this is not the meaning of the resolutions of 1798, I have much misunderstood them. It is precisely upon this point that the public mind of Virginia has been most strangely misled by the authority of the President's name, and the speciousness of your paragraphs. — You owe the people a heavy debt of reparation, which I hope you will live to pay.
This leads us to the second object of the resolutions of 1798, which is "to maintain within the limits of the respective States, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them." I have already shown, in my second letter, that these authorities, rights, and liberties are not merely those which belong to every sovereign State, and which may be enjoyed as well in a state of separation as in league with others, but also all the authorities, rights, and liberties which the States are entitled to, under the Constitution, and as members of the Union. No State, therefore, can possibly effect this object of the resolutions of 1798, by any proceeding which either withdraws her from the Union, or weakens her just influence in it.
South Carolina says that an unconstitutional law is void, and so say the Virginia Resolutions — South Carolina says that each State has a right to decide for itself whether a law is constitutional or not, and so say the Virginia Resolutions — South Carolina, in the exercise of this right, has declared that the Tariff Laws are unconstitutional and so say the Virginia Resolutions of 1828 and 1829 (I have forgotten the date) and so, Mr. Ritchie, say you. How, then, can you countenance the President, in subjecting the citizens of South Carolina to the sword, for not submitting to what you yourself believe to be a sheer usurpation on the part of the Federal Government? Do, sir, in pity to our oppressed spirits, answer this question. You will not answer it, sir — because you cannot answer it without convicting yourself of inconsistency. This I will prove — for I do not mean to allow you any refuge from this dilemma. South Carolina is either right in her proceedings, (principles and all,) or else she is wrong. If she is right, then, there can be no pretence whatever for making war upon her: if she is wrong, how does that fact appear? It is admitted that the other States, co-parties with her to the Constitution have not said so. — Congress alone, and the President, or rather the Federal Government, has said it. Do you, sir, acknowledge any such right in the Federal Government? Is it not perfectly clear, that if such right exists the Federal Government is an appellate tribunal, with power to decide, in the last resort, upon the constitutionality of its own acts? Of what avail is the right of a State to pronounce that an unconstitutional act of Congress is really so, if Congress may overrule that decision? Is not this, sir, the very essence of that consolidation against which the Virginia Resolutions, Madison's Report, and your own valuable labours, have so long contended? It is impossible, then, for you to justify Congress and the President, except by asserting, either that Congress may overrule the decision of South Carolina, upon a question touching their own powers, and, by the same rule, may overrule the decision of every other State, and thus become the sole judges of the extent of their own powers; or by asserting that they may constitutionally enforce an unconstitutional law. Can you, sir, escape this difficulty, without abandoning every principle for which you have professed to contend for thirty years? I am exceedingly anxious to know in what manner you will do it. For myself, I can discover but one possible loop-hole of retreat, and even that I will endeavour to close upon you. — I reserve this, however, for a succeeding letter.
Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of it's functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent. (Your quote from "Tucker's Blackstone".)
Me in post 194:
My disagreement is with the position that a state or states have the unilateral right to secede from the Union at mere will and that the states remaining in the Union have no right to try and penalize the secession or hold them to the agreement to remain in Union.It may be that actions by the Northern States were sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union, justifying secession by the Southern States. Or it may not be. As I wrote: “Which side eventually had a legitimate grievance is up for debate.”
If actions by the Northern States were sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union, thereby justifying secession by the Southern States, the Northern States were in the wrong to wage war.
If actions by the Northern States were not sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union and secession by the Southern States was unjustified, the Northern States had some right to try and hold the seceding States to the agreement or penalize them.
If it pleased me to do so, and it doesn't right now, I could take much of your post, including the quote at the top of this post, and use it to support the last paragraph above.
...(before that ambulance chaser from Illinois changed the nature of government from "consent of the governed" into "consent or be shot")...
I don’t agree that Lincoln matters that much except as someone who succeeded in doing the will of the Northern States and people. I don’t think he could have done what he did if it wasn't what the Northern States and people wanted done. I wonder whether or not there would have been an effort to impeach him if he had not tried to hold the Union together.