Sigh. A dignified opening, to be sure.
They meant what they meant - period. Then they provided a method to change the document if we thought ourselves wiser than they.
Fine so far. Of course, it requires all sides of the argument to abide by the result, once it's decided. Secession renders that wonderful method moot, of course -- which means that all of the hard work of the Founders was in fact pointless.
And it's important to remember that the real issue was: "Let us keep people as slaves, or we'll leave." The slavery issue was nothing new: it had been threatening the Union for decades. How ironic that those manly champions of "states rights" stated their case primarily in terms of keeping people in bondage. One might almost think that they cared very little for states rights, and very much for their own riches....
The Constitution does not prohibit secession - and the 10th Amendment reserves any rights for the States that are not implicitly stated.
However, the Constitution clearly sets out the MANY constraints that the Federal Government can place on the individual states.
Take Article VI, for example, which specifically say that the laws and constitutions of the states are INFERIOR to the Constitution. A state law that declares that state to be no longer bound by the Constitution is invalid.
It is, in fact, an act of insurrection, which the Constitution explicitly empowers the Federal Government to suppress. (This leaves you to defend a weak claim that secession was not insurrection.)
Just like the rights of the People, they are not GRANTED by the Constitution - instead the Government is limited by the Consitution - likewise the rights of the sovereign States are reserved for the States themselves unless otherwise agreed to in a previous article.
Article VI, for example....?
No, a State law that violates a Constitutional provision is invalid. Since secession is not proscribed by that document, a State law or resolution seceding is not invalid.
LTS