Assume for a minute that the Constitution did dissolve the union as it existed under the Articles of Confederation. I don't know that it did, but if so, the Constitutional Convention (called, I believe, by the Continental Congress) would have constituted an approval of the whole union of a possible change in the status of the union.
Had a convention been called or amendment passed to dissolve the union in 1860, there would have been fewer constitutional problems or conflicts over such a dissolution. Such a use of constitutional channels might also have helped to cool down the political climate. That is the way constitutional governments are expected to behave, with due deliberation and concern with process, consequences, and conciliation. Once the country divided into armed camps, though, such measures were impossible.
As for Sumter, the story of Toombs's warning to Davis not to fire on the fort lest it unite Northerners against the Confederacy is well known. The degree to which Davis was trying to head off South Carolina hotheads, and the degree to which he wanted war to pull the Upper South into the Confederacy have both been topics of much discussion. Davis ran the clear risk of war in making a bet that could have increased the size and power of his little regime. So I don't think you can put all the blame on one side.
Buchanan also has to bear much of the blame. His view that states couldn't secede and the union had no right to prevent them from doing so was inherently unstable, more a refusal to decide than a decision. Each side seized on the part of the formulation that favored their own interest, and war came. I don't know what Buck could have done differently, but it looks like his two-headed argument only strengthened each side in its resolve to fight.
I would agree with you that the federal system has been much imperiled in recent decades. But I'd argue, first, that rather than a defense of federalism, the rebellion looks like a foolish destruction of older concepts of the union. "The Old Republic" died not when Lincoln took office, but with secession and the formation of the Confederacy. Whatever followed would be different from what had come before. Having two armed camps facing each other would have radically changed American history. So would allowing states the right to pick and choose which laws they would obey. Was it worthwhile destroying what we had before the war?
Secondly, the Civil War did point up serious problems with federalism. A union that was silent or indifferent about something as important as slavery was bound to face trouble. This indicates an ongoing problem with federalism of any sort that has to be grappled with by any federated system. It's not clear that any federation can entirely avoid or permanently suppress such conflicts. The old Republic was torn apart by them, not so much by abolitionist passion as by slaveholders' fear and insecurity. So there are no easy answers.
Third, there's some truth in the view that the 14th amendment allowed the federal government -- especially the courts -- to enforce uniform standards on the states, though the widespread use of the Amendment to do so would only happen generations after the Civil War. But the vision of Americans moving from state to state in search of more freedom was given a greater reality by the 14th Amendment. For a large part of the population, such movement wasn't possible in antebellum America.
Much of our loss of freedom has to do with the loss of the frontier and with the introduction of the income tax. I'll grant that the 14th Amendment allowed the courts greater power over both the powers of the states and the rights of individuals, but the effect of the Reconstruction amendments certainly wasn't one-sidedly against freedom. On the contrary, whatever bad effects they they might have had later on, they were also a contribution to greater liberty.
I don't want to get drawn into another endless argument… I simply refer to the supremacy clause.
From the link you provided:
”It has long been established that ‘a state statute is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid federal statute’"
There is no need for an “endless argument” – simply name the “valid federal statute” that prohibits State secession. There is absolutely no “conflict” unless some “valid federal statute” declares secession to be unlawful.
If a state cannot simply void a federal law or constitutional provision on its own, it's highly unlikely that it could simply throw off the whole Constitution.
First, you are ‘comparing apples and oranges.’ To “void a federal law or constitutional provision,” that “federal law or constitutional provision” must in fact exist. And you have yet to cite a “federal law or constitutional provision” that prohibits secession. Why? Because no such restriction exists (except, perhaps, in some vague ‘unwritten law’ apparently familiar only to unionists).
Second, you seem to be suggesting that, because the federal government was delegated certain enumerated powers, it was therefore also granted any other power that might somehow relate. Mr. Madison addressed that issue repeatedly (The Federalist No. 45, i>The Virginia Resolutions of 1798, Report on the Virginia Resolutions of 1800, Letter to Spencer Roane, 1819, etc.), as did Mr. Jefferson (The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Declaration of 1825, etc.). They suggested that federal powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; and that a ‘broad & pliant’ interpretation of federal powers (such as that favored by most unionists) was never intended, and was completely unjustified. Mr. Madison observed that if such broad powers had in fact been proposed for the new federal government, the Constitution would never have been ratified.
“A union that was silent or indifferent about something as important as slavery was bound to face trouble;” “the 14th amendment allowed the federal government -- especially the courts -- to enforce uniform standards on the states;” “Much of our loss of freedom has to do with the loss of the frontier and with the introduction of the income tax.”
You raise a number of interesting points. However, I would suggest that many problems were caused by the imposition of a national government on a constitutional foundation intended for a federation of States. And finally, if the specific written terms of the Constitution conflict with your concept of government, it is more likely that your concept of government is unconstitutional, than that the Constitution does not actually mean what it clearly says.
;>)