The Quiet Sesquicentennial of the War between the States

American Thinker ^ | 5/20/2014 | James Longstreet

[Sioux-san]

Not much media coverage, not much fanfare, not much reflection. A war that carved over 600,000 lives from the nation when the nation’s population was just 31 million. To compare, that would equate to a loss of life in today’s population statistics, not to mention limb and injury, of circa 6 million.

We are in the month of May, when 150 years ago Grant crossed the Rapidan to engage Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee stood atop Clark’s Mountain and watched this unknown (to the eastern theatre) entity lead a massive army into Lee’s home state. Soon there would be the Wilderness, where forest and brushfires would consume the wounded and dying. Days later, the battle of Spotsylvania ensued, in which hand-to-hand combat would last nearly 12 hours. Trading casualties one for one and rejecting previous prisoner exchange and parole procedures, Grant pushed on, to the left flank. The Battle of the North Anna, then the crossing of the James, and thus into the siege of Petersburg. This was 1864 in the eastern theatre.

Today there is hardly a whisper of the anniversary of these deeds, sacrifices, and destruction. Why?

One can suppose that the weak treatment of history at the alleged higher levels of education in this country contributes to the lack of attention. “It was about slavery; now on to WWI.” The War between the States was so much more complicated than the ABC treatment that academia presents. And as the old saying goes, the more complicated the situation, the more the bloodshed...

[Sherman Logan]

I vote for “Lincoln’s destruction of states rights continues to this day.”

A truly classic example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.

Our present destruction of states rights occurred after Lincoln, therefore that destruction would not have occurred without his actions. We'd still be living in a loose federation, with the federal government absorbing about 1.5% of GDP.

Of course, we'd have already been conquered by either the Nazis or the Communists, but by golly we'd have our states rights intact!

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "I'm not sure what views you might be objecting to.
NS was just as solid a conservative as anyone here."

Thanks for defending & explaining Non Sequitur.
I did not read any posts from him outside CW threads, but somehow got the notion that he was banned for supporting homosexuality.
From that I supposed that maybe this fellow had yet other views incompatible with Free Republic.
And those were the "other views" I wanted to disclaim.
Thanks for setting me straight on that.

[BroJoeK]

Sherman Logan: "But what is odd is the fallback position, that the war was fought over taxes or tariffs."

Georgia Girl 2, from post #223: "I just understand revisionist history and southern loathing people who come on every Southern thread to trash the South. "

achiles2000 from post #83: "Slavery was a cause of tension among the states, but the South’s concerns over the tariff (which had a long history as a source of strife and had lead SC years earlier to contemplate nullification or leaving the Union (Jackson threatened to invade) and federal corporate welfare for Northern Industry, as well as other federalism concerns, were the main drivers."

The idea that Lincoln started Civil War to protect Federal revenues, which some claimed, came up to 90% from the South, has been argued here often and passionately.
But somewhere in those discussions, I managed to save this url, illustrating exactly how much of the US economy, and Federal Revenues, were based on the seven Deep South states which first declared secession, "at pleasure."

By my count, total 1859 tariff revenues = $48 million.
Total revenues from Deep South ports = $2.7 million = less than 6% of the total.

So, "war fought over tariffs" is historical revisionism at its most blatant.

[Sherman Logan]

Sorry, Joe, while I agree with your main point, I don’t think that’s a very good argument in its favor.

Tariffs were paid to the government at the port of entry, by the importer. But they were then shipped all over the country by rail and steamboat. The person that actually paid the cost of the tariff was the eventual consumer, who might be located anywhere.

So to figure out the actual cost of the tariff to the South you would have to figure out how much of those imports were consumed by the South as compared to the North. Those figures might be available somewhere but I don’t know where.

The South also claimed that it lost immense sums due to protective tariffs that forced them to buy more expensive products made in the US, mostly in the North, rather than imports. The actual financial impact was usually greatly exaggerated and always ignored that the effect of protective tariffs was exactly the same on an IA farmer as a SC planter. The beneficiaries of the protection were not a section as such, but rather certain business and labor groups. And, of course, to obtain the benefits of protection themselves, all southerners had to do was start a protected business.

The CSA, had it won its independence, would have had to finance a government and military capable of maintaining that independence. I strongly suspect, though I can’t prove, that the cost of doing so would have been greater, probably a multiple, of the federal taxes paid by the South under the Union. Just as total taxes paid by Americans were significantly higher after the Revolution than before.

I also suspect they would have, despite the prohibition in the CSA Constitution, developed something with the effect, if not perhaps the name, of protective tariffs. They would need to built up industry so a blockade couldn’t stop critical military imports in an future confrontation with the Union.

So, to my mind, if they indeed went to war over taxes, which I don’t believe for a minute, it was remarkably stupid for them to do so, since they would almost certainly have been paying higher taxes after the war than before. And that leaves out the cost of paying for the war itself.

But what I find most astonishing is the assumption by neo-confederates that going to war over (quite low by any rational standards) tax rates was morally justified. Preservation of the Union did not morally justify the 700k+ dead, but a LA planter not wanting to pay a 15% tariff on luxury French imports did justify that cost.

[achilles2000]

Bubba, You are right about it being sent to the Congress (under the Articles). Thank you.

Nevertheless, if you read Article Thirteen of the Articles. you find: “And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of EVERY state.

The Constitution was an entirely new government compact that was put into effect in accordance with its own terms by the consent of only 9 states, as specified in Article 7 (”The ratification by nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.”).

The Constitution went into effect without the ratifications of New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. George Washington had been in office for about 8 months before Rhode Island finally ratified in 1790. The Constitution wasn’t an amendment to the Articles because amendments required the consent of every legislature before they could go into effect, and the Constitution went into effect on the basis of only 9 ratifications. So, 9 states seceded from the “Perpetual Union” and formed a new government, leaving four states behind. I am unaware of anyone at that time becoming much exercised over the ratifying states’ right to secede. In any event, no one thought they had the right to stop them.

The departure of states from the Confederation despite the language of Article Thirteen made a mockery of “Perpetual Union”. This undoubtedly why they chose not to put “Perpetual Union” language in the Constitution and did not give the government under the Constitution an express power to force states to remain in the Union.

[DoodleDawg]

Nevertheless, if you read Article Thirteen of the Articles. you find: “And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of EVERY state.

Not to put too fine a point on it but the Articles themselves were not altered. They were replaced by the Constitution created by a convention authorized by Congress and later sent to the states for ratification, also with the approval of Congress.

The departure of states from the Confederation despite the language of Article Thirteen made a mockery of “Perpetual Union”.

I would disagree since at no time were any of the original 13 states out of the Union with the rest. Between the time that the Constitution was ratified by the 9th state and when Rhode Island ratified it she was not an independent or sovereign nation. She was always a part of the United States, entitled to the same rights as the other states.

[achilles2000]

Perhaps someone else is arguing that the War was only over tariffs and economic issues. I haven’t said that, and no one else on this thread argues that as far as I have seen.

As you probably know, the tariff nearly started a war in the Jackson administration. The main concern about Lincoln himself was that he and the new Congress would push through the Morrill Tariff AND enforce it. Remember, Lincoln was known as an ardent protectionist.

Apart from Charles Adams detailed book on the subject, an important article that documents in detail the role of protectionism in Lincoln’s political career and rise to the Presidency is Columbia University historian Reinhard H. Luthin’s “Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff,” published in the July 1944 issue of The American Historical Review.

Here is a summary of a few points:

1. In 1860, Pennsylvania was the acknowledged key to success in the presidential election. It had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Pennsylvania Republicans let it be known that any candidate who wanted the state’s electoral votes must sign on to a high protectionist tariff to benefit the state’s steel and other manufacturing industries. As Luthin writes, the Morrill tariff bill itself “was sponsored by the Republicans in order to attract votes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.”

2. The most influential newspaper in Illinois at the time was the Chicago Press and Tribune under the editorship of Joseph Medill, who immediately recognized that favorite son Lincoln had just the protectionist credentials that the Pennsylvanians wanted. He editorialized that Lincoln “was an old Clay Whig, is right on the tariff and he is exactly right on all other issues. Is there any man who could suit Pennsylvania better?”

3. At the same time, a relative of Lincoln’s by marriage, a Dr. Edward Wallace of Pennsylvania, sounded Lincoln out on the tariff by communicating to Lincoln through his brother, William Wallace. On October 11, 1859, Lincoln wrote Dr. Edward Wallace: “My dear Sir: [Y]our brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff view, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject. I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views” (emphasis added). Lincoln was establishing his bona fides as an ardent protectionist.

4. At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, the protectionist tariff was a key plank. As Luthin writes, when the protectionist tariff plank was voted in, “The Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations were terrific in their applause over the tariff resolution, and their hilarity was contagious, finally pervading the whole vast auditorium.” Lincoln received “the support of almost the entire Pennsylvania delegation” writes Luthin, “partly through the efforts of doctrinaire protectionists such as Morton McMichael . . . publisher of Philadelphia’s bible of protectionism, the North American newspaper.”

5. Returning victorious to his home of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln attended a Republican Party rally that included “an immense wagon” bearing a gigantic sign reading “Protection for Home Industry.” Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) economic guru, Pennsylvania steel industry publicist/lobbyist Henry C. Carey, declared that without a high protectionist tariff, “Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be dead before the day of inauguration.”

6. The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

This makes it clear why Lincoln rejected Virginia’s pleas that he not invade the South on the basis of his fear that a low tariff Deep South would deprive the federal government of revenues that it wanted.

During the 1860-61 period, Deep South newspapers wrote about this. Here is an example from The New Orleans Daily Crescent (January 1861):

“They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people’s pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests...These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. The [the North] are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto {a reference to the Morril Tariff]. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it.”

Slavery was also a major reason for secession, but no one on this thread has specified why. It was NOT because the Southerners thought that Lincoln would end slavery. During the election of 1860 and the season of secession, that was nowhere on the table. As pointed out earlier, Lincoln was willing to add additional Constitutional assurances and vigorously enforce the Fugitive Slave Law of 1860. Those offers by Lincoln made him quite unpopular with the abolitionists.

So, how did slavery enter in? For one thing, radical abolitionist elements in the North were trying to create a Haiti-style servile insurrection in the South. This was a far greater fear in the South than any worry about slavery being ended. In fact, this is why the John Brown raid was such a catalyst for secession. A call for servile insurrection was a call for the murder of men, women, and children all over the South. Of course, this was the work of a tiny group of people in the North, but they were both very vocal and very active. The Brown raid, for example, was financed, along with other terrorist activities by Brown, by a group of only six abolitionists.

The South also resented the banning of slavery from new states. It wasn’t just that they feared that new free states would eventually cement in place Northern high tariff policies and other measures armful to the South, but it also reflected a general resentment over what they thought was a form of contempt shown them by a disparate form of treatment of their “peculiar” property. More generally, the North’s expressions of contempt for the South (born of sectional rivalry and rejection of slavery), antagonized, not merely Southern slaveholders, but also the vast majority of Southerners who owned no slaves. I am sure that there are other ways in which slavery influenced the decisions in the Deep South to secede, but it wasn’t a fear of Lincoln ending slavery.

[achilles2000]

True. Texas didn’t have a choice. That was the annexation deal offered, and the slave state issue was a key consideration. Giving up territory, in a sense, was Texas’ way of buying into the Union and fulfilling Sam Houston’s dream of Texas becoming a state.

[achilles2000]

I have conceded that that one peripheral point was inaccurate. But I do find your comment strange coming from someone who was wrong about several more central points, as pointed out previously

[Georgia Girl 2]

The truth of the matter is that there has never been a war fought over slavery anywhere. Wars are always fought over, power, money and territory. The Civil War was no different.

[achilles2000]

I do read your posts. They are repetitive and repeat “talking points” taken from the massive body of leftist historiography on this subject. Benson Lossing and Eric Foner live rent-free in your head. You are so invested in Northern Triumphalist history that you are willing to swallow an unlimited state. Judicial review was nothing but a usurpation of power. Thomas Woods has an excellent book on the history of nullification, but you won’t read it because its careful sourcing would be upsetting.

[Sherman Logan]

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration.

The Senate passed the Morrill Tariff by 25 to 14, after seven states had seceded. This implies that it would have failed by 28 to 25 had secession not occurred, as it did in the previous session of the Senate.

The federal government in 1860 had a budget of $60M. Let us assume this would go up to $100M with the higher tariff. Let us further assume South would wind up paying half this amount, which given the population disproportion is conservative.

If the tariff increase justified secession and war it means that war and the death of 700k Americans was justified because the South didn't want to pay an additional $20M/year in taxes. Do you really believe that?

As far as the Union invading to prevent the loss of the (presumably) $30M or $50M in annual taxes from the South, the remaining Union states somehow managed to come up with $4000M over the next four years to pay for the war. Presumably it would have been a good deal easier to come up with the 4% of this amount needed to replace southern taxes.

[achilles2000]

The states signed the Treaty of Paris as sovereign entities. Their association under the Articles defined a form of association that the signatories declared “Perpetual Union”. The Constitution defines a very different polity from the Articles. The states initially outside of the Constitution were obviously NOT part of the “United States” defined by the Constitution because they had not consented to it by ratifying it. At most, they remained a part of the “United States” confederacy defined by the Articles, but in fact, everyone recognized that the “United States” under the Articles had been dissolved, which meant that they did revert to their original status as independent states.

Michael Farris wrote an article a few years ago trying to argue that the Constitution was just an amendment to the Articles precisely to avoid having to conclude that 9 states just walked away from the “Perpetual Union”.

BTW, I am not arguing that the original 13 states should be forced to return to the Articles ;-)

[DoodleDawg]

The states signed the Treaty of Paris as sovereign entities.

Really? Can you identify the individual who signed the treaty for each of the 13 sovereign entities?

The states initially outside of the Constitution were obviously NOT part of the “United States” defined by the Constitution because they had not consented to it by ratifying it.

Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution did not define the United States in its preamble. The only time it mentions any state by name is when it outlines the number of representatives each state is entitled to until the next census. Now if you look at Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, all 13 states are entitled to representation. So if you want to look at it that way they were defined by the Constitution as part of the United States too.

...which meant that they did revert to their original status as independent states.

You say that as if they were ever independent states.

Michael Farris wrote an article a few years ago trying to argue that the Constitution was just an amendment to the Articles precisely to avoid having to conclude that 9 states just walked away from the “Perpetual Union”.

Admittedly the Constitution does not use the term 'perpetual union' but that doesn't mean that the Union was somehow disbanded by the Constitution and reformed as an new and separate nation. They United States as a nation was formalized by the Articles of Confederation. It existed before the Constitution was written, it existed during the ratification process, and it's existed ever since.

[achilles2000]

You should be familiar with the concept of agency. Each state didn’t send a separate person to sign. Four were enough.

The Treaty:

Preface. Declares the treaty to be “in the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity”, states the bona fides of the signatories, and declares the intention of both parties to “forget all past misunderstandings and differences” and “secure to both perpetual peace and harmony”.
1.Acknowledging the United States (viz. the Colonies) to be free, sovereign and independent states, and that the British Crown and all heirs and successors relinquish claims to the Government, property, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof...

Please note that they are specified as “free, sovereign and independent states”. This really isn’t a point of historical contention. Britain recognized the former colonies as free and independent states, which is what they were. While the colonies/states were confederated during the War and for a while after, the Articles established a confederation of sovereign states. That is why the government formed under the Articles was so weak and why a convention was ultimately called to amend them to provide for a more powerful federal government.

Here is something you can consult: Jensen, Merrill (1959). The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774–1781. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. xi, 184.

The “Confederacy” (see Article One of the Articles) formed under the Articles was a completely different polity from the polity formed by the Constitution. The “Confederacy”, called the “United States”, formed by the Articles was effectively abandoned when 9 states decided they were going to operate under a different form of government. If the 4 states that didn’t ratify right away had stayed out, then the new polity under the Constitution would have had only 9 original states.

In any event, the Articles were not lawfully amended, and the claim of “Perpetual Union” did not in the minds of the first 9 states preclude leaving that Confederacy and setting up a different form of government without the other states. In effect, they were following the principles of the Declaration; because certain states felt that the Confederacy was not achieving their ends, they felt free to “...dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...” and “institute a new government”.

By the way, just because two different organizations use some of the same terminology, e.g. “United States”, it doesn’t mean they are the same organization. Half a dozen EU countries could leave the EU and form a new organization based on different principles that calls itself the EU, but that wouldn’t mean that the first organization calling itself the EU and the second are the same organization. Even if the rest of the original EU countries eventually walked away from the organization called the EU that they initially remained in and joined the new organization that also calls itself the “EU”, it wouldn’t make the two organizations the same organization. A polity is defined by its organizing principles, not by boundaries and members.

[DoodleDawg]

You should be familiar with the concept of agency. Each state didn’t send a separate person to sign. Four were enough.

I'm familiar with the concept of the United States. That's who Adams, Franklin, and Jay signed on behalf of. Not New York, Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania.

Please note that they are specified as “free, sovereign and independent states”.

Please note that the treaty is between Great Britain and the United States, as is clearly stated in the document itself: Treaty of Paris

If the 4 states that didn’t ratify right away had stayed out, then the new polity under the Constitution would have had only 9 original states.

Conjecture on your part. The fact is that they did ratify, and during the time until they did the other states did not consider them as being outside of the United States and did not treat them as foreign countries.

By the way, just because two different organizations use some of the same terminology, e.g. “United States”, it doesn’t mean they are the same organization

But at no time did any of the states consider themselves outside of the United States. You didn't have one group of states considering themselves the real United States and another group considering themeselves another version of the United States. One country, start to finish.

[achilles2000]

“But at no time did any of the states consider themselves outside of the United States. You didn’t have one group of states considering themselves the real United States and another group considering themselves another version of the United States. One country, start to finish.”

That is completely wrong. Rhode Island elected no Senators or Congressmen to the Congress under the Constitution, nor did they vote in the Presidential election. If you didn’t ratify, you were outside the union formed by the Constitution. There was an effort to try to force RI to ratify by restricting trade with RI. RI ratify shortly after a bill to boycott RI passed Congress.

Your entire argument on the Treaty rests on conflating the “United States” as a “Confederacy” under the Articles with “United States” under the Constitution. They were different entities with different powers. The Confederacy under the Articles was an association of independent states that talked and collaborated for certain purposes, rather like the UN. That is why the British enumerated each of the states as free and independent sovereign states. The miniscule government under the Articles was nothing more than a very weak agent for the states.

[achilles2000]

Here is perhaps a better way of putting things.

The Declaration of Independence speaks of “free and independent states” that “have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.” You can check that easily. As I already mentioned, the British acknowledged the independence not of a single blob, but of a group of states, which they proceeded to list one by one.

As for the nature of the Confederacy under the Articles, Article II of the Articles of Confederation says the states “retain their sovereignty, freedom, and independence”; they must have enjoyed that sovereignty in the past in order for them to “retain” it in 1781 when the Articles were officially adopted.

Even the ratification of the Constitution was accomplished not by a single, national vote, but by the individual ratifications of the various states, each assembled in convention. By the way, as they ratified the Constitution, they were joining a movement of secession from the Confederacy under the Articles. I should also add that at no point did I suggest that the non-ratifiers considered themselves the “real United States”. The label didn’t have all that much importance then. After the 9 states walked away from the government under the Articles, Rhode Island, for example, was just a small independent, sovereign state, just as the Declaration said it was, as the Articles said it was, an das the Treaty said it was. If we left the UN it would amount to about the same thing as leaving the Confederacy under the Articles, except that the UN doesn’t claim to establish “Perpetual Union”.

[DoodleDawg]

That is completely wrong. Rhode Island elected no Senators or Congressmen to the Congress under the Constitution, nor did they vote in the Presidential election.

As for voting in the election of 1789 neither did New York - they didn't appoint their electors in time.

If you didn’t ratify, you were outside the union formed by the Constitution. There was an effort to try to force RI to ratify by restricting trade with RI. RI ratify shortly after a bill to boycott RI passed Congress.

But prior to that point the other states had treated Rhode Island as one of their fellow states. They did not levy tariffs. They did not restrict trade. They did not send ambassadors. They kept the status quo. Because Rhode Island was a part of the United States.

Your entire argument on the Treaty rests on conflating the “United States” as a “Confederacy” under the Articles with “United States” under the Constitution. They were different entities with different powers.

But the same country the whole time.

That is why the British enumerated each of the states as free and independent sovereign states.

Then why didn't they treat with them as separate and sovereign states instead of dealing with a single soverign nation, the United States of America?

[DoodleDawg]

The Declaration of Independence speaks of “free and independent states” that “have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.” You can check that easily. As I already mentioned, the British acknowledged the independence not of a single blob, but of a group of states, which they proceeded to list one by one.

The Declaration of Independence is not the document on which the country was founded. The Articles of Confederation was until replaced by the Constitution.

Even the ratification of the Constitution was accomplished not by a single, national vote, but by the individual ratifications of the various states, each assembled in convention.

"In discussing this question, the counsel for the State of Maryland have deemed it of some importance, in the construction of the Constitution, to consider that instrument not as emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent States. The powers of the General Government, it has been said, are delegated by the States, who alone are truly sovereign, and must be exercised in subordination to the States, who alone possess supreme dominion.

It would be difficult to sustain this proposition. The convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected by the State legislatures. But the instrument, when it came from their hands, was a mere proposal, without obligation or pretensions to it. It was reported to the then existing Congress of the United States with a request that it might "be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratification."

This mode of proceeding was adopted, and by the convention, by Congress, and by the State legislatures, the instrument was submitted to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, effectively and wisely, on such a subject -- by assembling in convention. It is true, they assembled in their several States -- and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the State governments." - CJ Marshall, McCulloch v Maryland

By the way, as they ratified the Constitution, they were joining a movement of secession from the Confederacy under the Articles.

So they seceded from the United States and formed...the United States? That makes no sense at all.

If we left the UN it would amount to about the same thing as leaving the Confederacy under the Articles, except that the UN doesn’t claim to establish “Perpetual Union”.

I'm sorry but I find that claim to make no sense at all either. Individual members of the UN are sovereign nations. The individual states are not. The members of the UN can carry on relations with other nations outside of the UN and without approval of the UN. The individual states can not. The individual states are part of a single sovereign nation, not sovereign nations on their own. They never have been sovereign entities.