So you contend that the states that formed our current union were never sovereign states? But what do you make of this clause in the articles of confederation?
They clearly were under the impression that they were sovereign states, no?
Yeah. I mean, we declared independence five years before the articles were ratified, but we didn't really have independence free and clear until two years after they were ratified. They probably started thinking of themselves as sovereign states when they declared independence, but in reality they never really existed as independent states. They were already part of the union before they were really independent.
But I don't think that's the question you should be asking. The question you should be asking is- were it not for the constitution or the articles of confederation, would they have been sovereign states? And the answer to that is probably yes.
The constitution lays out the rules for the federation and the rules for the member states. I see no prohibition on any of the member states from leaving the union, in which case, none of the lines in the constituion would apply to them, since they would not be members. The constitution only applies to those who belong to the union.
That's what ratification is- an agreement to be bound by the terms of the contract.
But, if you want something more specific I guess it would be the references to the crime of rebellion and the consequences that flow from it. That's what succession is- rebellion. The original constitution allowed the president to suspend habeas corpus to fight a rebellion. The post civil war 14th amendment adds that voting rights can be taken away "for participation in rebellion or other crime", that you cannot be elected to Congress if you have participated in a rebellion, and that any debts accumulated by rebelling states would be "illegal and void".
You don't need that though. Really I think you're kind of getting wrapped around what is really just a semantic question. Rejecting an entire system of law certainly goes against that system of law. But by rejecting it, you're saying it no longer applies to you, so that doesn't really matter. The US's revolution was certainly illegal under British law, but British law no longer governed the US, and it was legal under the new US law. It would work the same way with any successful rebellion.
A treaty with no language specifically describing its termination is assumed to be "at will". This means that the members of the treaty may leave whenever they wish.
That's an interesting angle, but unfortunately, it isn't true. Under international law if there is no withdrawal condition in a treaty, what the courts do is try to assess the intent of the parties when they signed it. The intent of the constitution is clearly for it to be binding on the parties. It provides rights that individuals can assert against the state that they live in. It requires states to do things they don't want to do all the time. If it were merely enforceable so long as the states wanted it to be, it wouldn't serve those purposes.