"The AoC compact was rendered null and void ( and with it, the old union) when the new compact (the Constitution) was created."

That is not true. The AoC was still in existance between those States that did not ratify. The U.S. Constitution does not say a failure to ratifiy the U.S. Constitution demands the end of the Articles of Confederation and its perpetual Union.

There is no evidence that all the States would have been independent nations without the Constitution. In fact all historical facts point in the opposite view.

The Constitution did not creat the Union.

1. The U.S. Constitution does not have a diffintion of what a State is.
2. The U.S. Constitution does not define the Union or name the States therein.

The Union of States was already declared, it was a state of mind, it did not require a Constitution to exist.

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David Upton