And it is just as clear that signing the Constitution ended that independence.

And the most truly bird-brained of them, will even claim that “duh, Da Civil War taught dem whose wuz right, DAAWK!”
Of course, this simply means that not only do they admit that the USA is an imperial dictatorship of abysmally bloody origin, but that they proudly and arrogantly brag about it, thinking that this is the way it SHOULD be. There’s simply no reasoning with such brain-dead acolytes of the almighty state, and the infinite wisdom of benevolent dictators (thus the fawning worship of Lincoln); by their logic, Hitler’s invasion of Poland was “The European Civil War…” or that the Holocaust “settled” the issue of which is the one true faith.

My point Exactly

And here, the law is determined by the original intentions of the People of the respective individual states themselves– which was ALWAYS to declare and retain their idividual soveriegnty, not throw it away to create a single massive empire.

Your pragmatism is likewis Machiavellian at best, claiming that the sword defeats all law and logic; I think you’ll find little future with that base mentality– Vikings and Mongols are things of the past.

As for the rest: my purpose is not to “lead,” but simply but to inform.

I am QUITE familiar with all of your fallacies that you mentioned, thank you very much, and I’ve dispatched them many times; so consider yourself another notch, another expended round and another emptied chamber.

You clearly don’t even know secession– which is legal– from REBELLION, which is NOT; also Jackson was just as deluded as Lincoln, making claims which likewise went against historical fact. On the contrary, Lincoln was PLAGIARIZING Jackson in his First Inaugural speech, having used Jackson’s 1832 Proclamation-speech as one of only three writers– the others being similar charlatans of Daniel Webster and Joseph Story.

Likewise, it doesn’t MATTER if each new state was recognized by “discrete action” or not; after all, the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783 was a joint action among various states including Britain and France.

Likewise, a “federal action” to admit a new state into the Union, still requires recognition of such via the MAJORITY of existing states, va their respective federal delegates– but that’s going by the book: in reality, the people of each new state, have the same right to self-government, as the existing states: i.e. by virtue of the democratic right of self-government claimed by the original 13. This power did NOT accrue to simply whatever doof held title to the real-estate, otherwise they’d still be ruled by the British Crown.

As for history: the Republicans waged the War Between the States, under the claim that it was a CIVIL war– i.e. between the citizens of a single sovereign state; and while the victor of any war is entitled to force his opinion on the vanquished, he is NOT the arbiter of historical FACT: and International Law and national sovereignty is determined ONLY the facts of the matter.

In short, one cannot conquer sovereign nations, under a claim of CIVIL war, simply because they happen to WIN: simply forcing a nation to admit legal subordination at gunpoint, doesn’t make TRUE under international law– any more than armed robby is a “gift.”

So before you find fault with my arguments, you might want to try getting your FACTS straight.

You cite a statement I made about the PRACTICALITY of secession, then proceed with a tirade about its LEGALITY. There is a difference. If the Confederacy had won the Civil War, secession would have been practically accomplished even if technically illegal, and if secession was constitutionally sound, it would not be rendered one whit more practical in the face of a federal conquest.

The PRACTICAL point was that if an independent sovereign state at the mouth of the Mississippi River cut off or infringed trade by farmers upstream, there would be a war to settle the difference. There are many other practical, geographic considerations of a similar nature. They will trump all the high-flown philosophical rhetoric of any number of dime-store John C. Calhouns. Our state boundaries can only be maintained and adhered to within a union.

Now before you think trashing Abraham Lincoln will make your point, don’t forget who stuffed a sock in Calhoun’s mouth: the Great Democrat, none other than General Andrew Jackson, who announced “The United States is a government, not a league,” and practically twisted Calhoun’s arm with his toast “Our federal union, it must be preserved.” South Carolina almost always wanted to secede, because it wanted out from under the guarantee of “a republican form of government.” The majority of the “white” population didn’t qualify for the franchise until after the Civil War, and nobody who owned less than 20 slaves could serve in the upper house of the legislature. Damned aristocrats.

No state admitted to the union after the original 13 was recognized by discrete action of the previously existing sovereign states. Each was recognized by an act of the federal congress, which also had to approve its constitution. No matter how you may try to twist words, history is real, what’s done is done, and there is no going back to undo it.

Kevin Carson’s analogy to Germany doesn’t hold water either. Germany was neither annexed by conquest, nor did it petition for annexation, nor was it created of whole cloth out of unsettled national territory. It was occupied for a time until the objectives of the war were well established, then returned to a sovereignty it had never merged into any other entity. Now, whether it can secede from the European Union, might be an interesting question, but it depends in part on the nature of the compact creating said union.

To wit:

“We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.”

So as far as they were concerned, they were each completely self-ruling from that time onward.

Some tories put forth the fact that Parliament’s choice of William and Mary held good in the colonies, as proof that the colonies were subordinate to Britain. But Adams argued that the colonies accepted W & M in James II’s stead of their own sovereign will. BTW, there’s some justice to that contention, since the New Englanders overthrew Governor Andros before news ever reached them of William’s invasion.

“First, while the original 13 colonies might have a claim to secession, most of the remaining states were formed from national territory in accordance with the prescription of the federal constitution. So, outside of the union, they have no right to exist at all.”

It doesn’t work that way. Once a state is recognized as equal by other sovereign states, it becomes likewise sovereign in its own right: for example, the 13 colonies only became sovereign states, because they were recognized as such by the sovereign states of Britain and France; and likewise, each NEW American state was recognized by the original 13, as an equal to themselves.
So there’s no way to say that new states are any less sovereign than the original 13. Anyone who says otherwise, simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about– and that includes one Abe Lincoln.