I'm informed (i hope correctly) that while Washington was at one time a 3rd degree Freemason, he later abandoned any obligations there, and warned others that Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ, as far as he knew, could be a serious danger to society, and that he later passed way with last rites as a Catholic
There's a saying, "prevenir antes ser prevenido", prevent before being prevented, and one of the reasons for constitutional government is to prevent tyranny. Appropriate and proper exercise of rights or privileges or any virtues is not tyranny but where do these rights come from and how are they agreeably exercised in society?
Aristotle's theme of the "good" was based in nature and convention, and there the questions of origin and motive become important, since the state should by custom represent merely the collective or corporate body of a community, and should not be contrary to nature. The same conditions hold for it to be good as for people themselves or any spirits.
In the City of God, Book II, Chapt. 21, St. Augustine quotes Cicero's De Re Publica, where Scipio says "the commonwealth is the wealth of the people", and he defines the people as "not any mass gathering, but a multitude bound together by a mutual recognition of rights and a mutual cooperation for the common good".
So there must be appropriate recognition and cooperation in equity, which is just, for any state to be legitimate, and illegitimacy offers a universal form or way of tyranny.
In the specific case of the United States government, the States created its legitimacy and original basis in the first place, within their own attainments after the successful conclusion of the war with Great Britain. None of them were forced to join or had to join. When they say that the US Constitution is the "supreme law of the land", they mean it in qualified reference to those states that are participating in its conventions -- not that the US Constitution or the United States government created the States or their attainments, which were historic, substantial, and unique at the successful conclusion of the war with Great Britain. In other words, the States were the first and authoritative Grantors and the US government in DC was the Grantee and the second. The States granted its first accession to all its benefits, powers, and procurements.
States' rights today is most commonly associated in people's minds with the failure and unpopularity of the Confederacy, yet that is not the end of the case. The failure and unpopularity of the Confederacy is not the point. The point is where did the Federal government and its courts and authorities come from anyway? They followed from the attainments and access of the States.
https://www.constitution.org/cmt/ahs/consview.htmhttps://archive.org/details/ourfederalrelati00robe/page/n8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_and_Virginia_Resolutions