“You have it backwards. Point out the provision in the constitution that says states do not have that right.”
Your understanding of the constitution is, of course, right.
Amendment X reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Those that dispute the validity of Amendment X should also see Amendment IX.
This is one of the reasons for the disputes on this site. The schools do not teach the constitution anymore
Yep. The IXth was put in specifically so that people could not claim a right did not exist if it wasn't listed among the bill of rights. The Xth makes clear that whatever the states did not DELEGATE (what a superior does with a subordinate) to the federal government, they kept.
Since nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the federal government the power to prevent secession, then that is a right retained by the states.
But of course over and above that the two sectional leaders Virginia and New York made it crystal clear they were keeping that right with express declarations saying so at the time that they ratified the Constitution.
Any argument put forth by the PC Revisionists to the contrary is a "might make right" argument. An analogous situation today would be a country leaving the UN after the UN passed ever more burdensome taxes that only fell on some countries while others stuck their snouts in the trough for the lion's share of the benefits without paying in nearly as much themselves.....then the UN going to war on the claim that a country could not legally leave the UN....or couldn't do so without a permission slip from others which would obviously never be granted - particularly if it were one of the countries paying all the bills.
But no Founder and no Founding document ever claimed an unlimited "right of secession" at pleasure.
All tied disunion to necessity from abuses, usurpations, injuries or oppression.
No such necessity remotely existed in 1860.