It might be a hard argument to make. The Articles of Confederation did indeed create a perpetual union, unalterable except by Congress and agreed to by all states. The Constitution created a more perfect union by strengthening the federal government and better defining the powers of the states. While the Constitution did provide methods for altering or modifying it, no mention was made of any means that would permit a state to withdraw from the Union outside of Article V. Something this important might have been mentioned since in essence it would have changed the Union from perpetual to "at the discretion of any state".
The new constitution omitted Article II from the Articles of Confederation which had stated: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." And yet even with that wording, the union was made perpetual and unalterable by any state by Article XIII.
One would have to make a case that the 10th Amendment provided for an escape, without so stating.
The hard argument to make is the one where you would have those same folks who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the dissolution of the political ties with England, agree to an insoluable union of the sovereign and several States.
Their very lives were shaped by the concept that
Government derives its just powers from the consent of the Governed, and that
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them... These concepts had not fallen away with independence from England, the thirst for Liberty is not so simply sated as to enter capriciously into a compact from which there could be no withdrawal.
The Federal Constitution was written to find a middle ground, wherein there was a Federal Government of limited and defined duties, primarily to coin the common money, to provide for mutual defense, to settle disputes between the States, and to keep the post roads open.
That secession from this more perfect arrangement would be denied would have been written into this compact were that the case, and in that event would likely have prevented ratification by all the States.
The idea was that, with the specific addition of the first ten Amendments to further safeguard the Rights of individuals and the several States, the arrangement would be palatable enough, if not desirable enough that all the several States would agree to it. But nowhere does it say that they could not withdraw, and not only was that aspect not specifically agreed to, but the retention of all powers and rights not proscribed by the agreement or specifically delegated to the Federal Government were retained by the States and the People.
