By 1776 King George had long since rendered his own opinion irrelevant by, among others:
These made US independence a matter of absolute necessity, not choice, and most certainly not "at pleasure".
Our Founders recognized necessity as in 1776 and mutual consent as in 1788.
But neither condition existed in 1860 which makes the Fire Eaters' actions "at pleasure".
Founders considered such secession little different from rebellion, which none of them supported.
DiogenesLamp: " Permission is not required to attain the right under God's law to be independent of people with whom you no longer wish to associate. "
Any contract has to be unwound lawfully, according to conditions recognized in the contract. Our Founders recognized mutual consent and necessity as valid reasons for disunion.
They did not recognize "at pleasure" as valid.
But as you well know, all such debate is irrelevant to the fact that after declaring secession, Fire Eaters proceeded to provoke war, start war, declare war and wage war in Union states.
Then they refused to stop fighting on any terms better than "Unconditional Surrender".
So the legitimacy of secession is irrelevant to what came later, as you well know.
You keep saying "necessity" as though that were not a matter of opinion. I keep pointing out that the Canadians were treated just the same as the Americans, and yet they didn't see it as a necessity to become independent.
Indeed, about 1/3rd of the American Colonists didn't see it as a "necessity" either.
So your "necessity" reduces to "at pleasure", whether you want to admit it or not.