Perpetual Union
The Second Continental Congress approved the Articles for ratification by the sovereign States on November 15, 1777, which occurred during the period from July 1778 to March 1781.
The 13th ratification by Maryland was delayed for several years due to conflict of interest with some other states, including the western land claims of Virginia.
Maryland's final ratification of the Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union established the requisite unanimous consent for the legal creation of the United States of America.
Even after the Civil War, which had been fought by the U.S. to prevent eleven of the southern slave states from leaving the Union, some still questioned whether any such inviolability survived after the U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles.
It has been so adopted by the other States.Hamilton and John Jay agreed with Madison's view, reserving "a right to withdraw [was] inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification.
"[8] The New York convention ultimately ratified the Constitution without including the "right to withdraw" language proposed by the anti-federalists.
"[11] Patrick Henry, shortly before his death, urged Americans not to "split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.
Gutzman's position received criticism for ignoring historical evidence surrounding the drafting of the constitution, and for being overly defensive of the Confederacy.
[16] More recently in 2006, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated, "If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.
[18] In 1713, Charles de Saint-Pierre presented a plan "A project for settling an everlasting peace in Europe," where in it is stated in Article 1: There shall be from this day following a Society, a permanent and perpetual Union, between the Sovereigns subscribed.
The section states "that the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England shall upon the first day of May next ensuing the date hereof and forever after be United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain"[21] The Act of Union 1801, uniting Great Britain and Ireland was set out in similar terms, but the Irish Free State, later the Republic of Ireland did leave the Union in 1922.
The doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom prevented the creation of a 'greater law' to entrench the Act of Union, a legal doctrine confirmed in the aftermath of Brexit in re Jim Allister[22] when Northern Ireland Unionist politicians attempted to judicially review the Northern Ireland Protocol as breaking the Act and the Treaty of Union.
