I stated: "Absent violent actions against Federal officials and property, the peaceful 
process to secede remains a viable argument, but probably not a winnable one in the end. After all the Articles of Confederation contained the word "perpetual" which was "blown away" by practical needs."

Staying in context: These two compliment one another for the purpose of pinning down a "Precedent in law" only.

That is the drafters of the Constitution were operating under the Articles of Confederation that contained the "Perpetuity" wording. They choose to ignore this confining definitive and cast it aside to adopt the Constitution, which contains no such specific wording or at least I am ignorant of such. Hence and citing this as precedent, it is arguable that any other political entity of any other time has the right to peaceably petition to secede and in so doing is not in violation of criminal law or civil process. But only for the purpose of bringing its petition before competent ruling authorities -- this would be the U.S. Congress and the U. S. Supreme Court.

In fact, ratification of the U.S. Constitution dissolved the Articles of Confederation. All analysis of the political and human events subsequent to the ratification must be made under the Constitution as it existed at the time of those events and not the Articles of Confederation.

As to a general debate as to whether the Federal government violated the sovereignty, freedom, or
independence of a state (Virginia), that must be restricted to the structure of the U.S. Constitution and not to the defunct Articles of Confederation.

It would have done Virginia no good but this how it should have gone: Virginia Assembly votes to secede. Virginia votes to secede. Virginia does not declare for the Confederacy. Virginia declares for complete independence and non alignment with any and all. Virginia asks a U. S. Federal Court to stay Lincoln's request to provide a troops against the Confederacy. Upon being denied, Virginia puts its troops into readiness but does not deploy them to Federal authority pending an appeal. Yeah, right! And the rest is history.