You said, "will not allow any splits in the Union."

Stephen, I will guess that the devolution will not take the form of a "split" as I think you mean the word to be interpreted.

It will happen gradually and almost imperceptibly, e.g., Texas, Arizona and CA have each started to enforce some part of immigration on their own borders in their own way to address that aspect of immigration that the Feds won't address that is important to each state.

There are now rumblings in Texas that the state is considering doing something about Global Warming in the sense in which areas of the Texas gulf are vanishing.

Unless I am wrong, Louisiana is considering similar measures. I will predict that one of the next things we will hear is state-run health care in addition to Medicare and so on with other present federal programs such as education.

One or two states or communities (I forget which) have adopted measures establishing English as their official language and so on.

In time, there will be no "split," in the sense of 1861, but a gradual assumption of federal responsibilities by state authorities who will in turn request federal offsetting reimbursements, etc.

The feds will not resist because the feds are running out of money and will gradually (over decades) allow this to continue until all they have left is national defense, the treasury, and a few other Constitutionally mandated duties that are appropriate federal responsibilities.

Think about it. It's happening before our very eyes right now.