When the individual states assembled and joined into a union they confirmed upon that collective union of states certain powers. Those powers were more closely enumerated and defined when we met again to ratify the Constitution. That's the way the country was wired, first in 1777 with the Articles of Confederation, and again in 1788 with the ratification of the United States Constitution.
Article I (Article 1 - Legislative) of the Constitution spells out duties and responsibilities of Congress.
Section 10Thus no states may enter into independent confederacies - only Congress possesses that authority.1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
Article II (Article 2 - Executive) establishes the role of the executive (president).
Article III (Article 3 - Judicial) defines the duties and responsibilities of the judicial branch - essentially the Supreme Court.
Section 21: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State —between Citizens of different States, —between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
Thus the Constitution grants the Supreme Court (the collective states) authority and jurisdiction over disputes between states.
Article IV (Article 4 - States' Relations) defines the relationship of the states to the whole.
Section 31: New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Thus it is up to Congress to admit or expel states. In the event of a circumstance such as happened with West Virginia, it is up to Congress plus the affected states to make such a division. Individual states do not possess the authority to do so - not legally at any rate.
To recap: yes it is a case of the federal government telling the states what they can and cannot do - that is the way the law was designed. No, it doesn't go against the 10th amendment because the Constitution granted the appropriate powers to both the Congress to define and organize the states and to the Supreme Court to adjudicate disputes between the states.
Glad I could help.
Silly me. I was under the impression that our government derived it's just powers from the consent of the governed. What we now have are political machines that don't give a damned about what the citizens think. As a matter of fact they have done their best to dumb them down to keep them nice and complacent. Gee, what could possibly go wrong here?
I like your choice of words. Couldn't a conservative Congress pass a bill, to be signed by a conservative president, expelling specific states from the Union? My nominees for expulsion:
List 1 - everyone but Texas and a small number of other states, perhaps UT, ID, WY, OK, and others who overwhelmingly rejected Obama's socialism and who request expulsion.
List 2 - the states that gave Obama 55% or more support in 2012, when they should have known better. IL, CT, NJ, DE, ME, CA, MA, MD, RI, NY, VT, HI, and DC.
The practical effect of expulsion is equivalent to secession, but the legal status may be far prettier. Besides, I don't think the sissies on the left have the guts to fight a war just to keep us under their thumbs. The thugs on the left would be too happy to have free access to their undefended subjects in their set of states, and wouldn't bother with free and armed Americans.