There is nothing inconsistant with perpetual union here. There is nothing here that would allow unilateral state secession.
"In the case now to be determined, the defendant, a sovereign state, denies the obligation of a law enacted by the legislature of the Union...In discussing this question, the counsel for the state of Maryland deemed it of some importance, in the construction of the Constitution, to consider that instrument as not emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent states. It would be difficult to maintain this position....
--Chief Justice John Marshall, majority opinon McCullough v. Maryland 1819
"That the United States form, for many, and for most important purposes, a single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these respects, is the government of the Union. It is their government and in that character, they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects, and in many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects it is competent. The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory.
The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empiure--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."
--Chief Justice John Marshall, writing the majority opinion, Cohens v. Virginia 1821
"The constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the constitution declares, by "the people of the United States."
-Justice Story, Martin v, Hunter's Lessee, 1816
The sovereignty of the United States rests on the people, not the States.
I know I am a brainwashed drone of the NEA. But Chief Justice Marshall and Justice Story were not.
Walt
So why would the assume one position in one case, and a different position in others. Or in McCullough claim both? Could it be that when federal issues are discussed, we are one group of people due to federal representation? And yet thanks to dual sovereignty, the people cannot act as one common group, but must act as a group within state boundaries? The state of Tennessee cannot prevent Georgia from doing anything affecting the citizens of Georgia, and vice-versa. Whatever actions the states want to take with respect to their union or the federal government, the state controls it's own destiny, it cannot force or legislate anything to compel another by it's actions. The ratification of Georgia did not bring Tennessee into the union, and the dissolution of that same political band did not deprive Tennessee of it's position in the Union. As Justice Thomas pointed out so elegantly, "the Constitution does not contemplate that those people will either exercise power or delegate it. The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation."