The question on whether a state may leave the Union or not is not really the question. If we agree that secession is not prohibited then it becomes a question on how secession should be accomplished. Walking out without discussion guarantees acrimony and conflict, something I can’t see the Founding Fathers agreeing to, Both Jefferson and Madison in their writings said that secession should be done with the agreement of both sides, those leaving and those staying. Even Rawle, while claiming secession at will was allowed, admitted that the individual states did not have the power to do so arbitrarily.
Nowhere did Jefferson or more importantly the states themselves when they ratified the Constitution ever agree that a sovereign state should require a permission slip from others in order to secede. That's absurd on its face. Obviously the central government is NEVER going to agree to terms of secession because the secession of a state would diminish its power and authority - not to mention money. Would the British Parliament have ever agreed to let the Colonies go had the Colonies told them they wished to leave and were here to negotiate reasonable terms of separation? Of course not. That's a completely disingenuous argument.
Funny, because that is exactly what they did do with the British Union.
They declared a right to independence and they left.
Both Jefferson and Madison in their writings said that secession should be done with the agreement of both sides, those leaving and those staying.
Both Jefferson (in his Kentucky Resolutions and his Declaration of 1825) and Madison (in his Virginia Resolutions and Report on those same resolutions) explicitly recognized the right of each State, as a party to the constitutional compact, "to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress" (Jefferson quoted). That clearly suggests unilateral action, and does not obviously exclude secession. If the same gentlemen suggested elsewhere that States might find it advisable to obtain concurrence from other parties to the compact, I suppose one might argue that their comments regarding unilateral secession might be debatable, but certainly not "easily refutable" as suggested by the author.
Even Rawle, while claiming secession at will was allowed, admitted that the individual states did not have the power to do so arbitrarily.
That may depend on what one considers to be arbitrary. Rawle observed in his View of the Constitution:
"[I]t is not to be understood, that... [the intervention of the power of the Union] would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code... It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union... To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all of our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases a right to determine how they will be governed... The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union..." [Chap. XXXI, emphasis mine]
Again, the right of secession (as it was understood prior to the war) was most definitely not "easily refutable"...
;>)