trate of the Union reminds the individuals concerned in these proceedings of their paramount obliga. tions as citizens of the United States, and warns them of the treasonable tendency of their acts; and upon his subsequent reference of the subject to the National Legislature, he recommended the adoption of such measures as were necessary to enforce the laws of the Union, and suppress the opposition to their execution, devised by evil councils and authorized in an evil hour, by the State of South Carolina. The act required was passed; and thus has every department of the government concurred in the declaration approved and sanctioned by a vast majority of the people, that the Government of the United States is supreme within its limited jurisdiction, and that its laws in pursuance of the Constitution form the supreme law of the land, "anything in the Constitution and laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding;" and that the existence and effect of a collision between them must be decided by the general head, and not by any of the members of the Union.

V. The last provision contained in the Constitution for giving efficacy to its powers is that by which effect and operation were given to the system by declaring that "the ratifications of the conventions of nine states should be sufficient for its establishment between the states so ratifying the same."

The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution; and to have required the unanimous ratification of the people of the several states would have subjected the essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of the smallest minority in any one

tions subsisting between that government and the individuals subjected in either mode to its authority. From the very nature of those relations, nothing can dissolve them but REVOLUTION; and there can, therefore, be no such thing as secession without revolution. The Constitution establishes a union between the people of the several states, intended to be perpetual. It contains numerous provisions founded on that supposition, and among them, one for its own amendment; none for its abandonment. It declares that new states may be admitted into the Union, but not that old states may withdraw from it. The Union is not, like the Confederation, reducible even to a perpetual alliance between the states, much less to a temporary one; but it is an association of the people of the several states in one mass, under a permanent and paramount constitution of government, operating upon them as individuals, created and assented to by that power in each state which alone had authority to abrogate its particular Constitution, or so far to modify it as to surrender powers to the General Government which had previously been delegated to the state governments. No state, therefore, can undo what the people have done, nor absolve its citizens from their obligations to obey the laws of the Union. It cannot divest them of their paramount rights as citizens of the United States; nor can the members of the state legislatures renounce their own oaths to support the Federal Constitution as the supreme law of the land; neither can any convention of the people of any state, any more than the people themselves, collectively or individually, dispense with their obligations, or dissolve their allegiance to the United States, unless they

ties with multiplied and important infractions of the Articles of Confederation. But a more direct answer was given to them by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case, to the great principle of self-preservation, to the transcendent law of God and nature, which declares the safety and happiness of society to be the objects which all political institutions should aim to accomplish, and for which they may all be sacrificed; and from what is known of the state of public affairs at that portentous crisis, we cannot doubt that this answer was felt to be conclusive.

It is, however, well worthy of observation, that it was not pretended on this occasion that any of the states could withdraw even from the Confederation, considered merely as a treaty of alliance, at its mere will and pleasure; nor absolve itself at its own discretion from its perpetual obligation, except in cases of the extreme urgency of self-preservation, or of the breach or violation of the compact by some other of the parties, of which the several parties, from the very nature of the Confederation, as a treaty between independent sovereigns, were themselves the judges. It has, nevertheless, been contended, as we have already had occasion to lament, that a state has a right, under the present Constitution, independently of the natural right of self-preservation, and resistance to intolerable oppression, to secede, at its own will and discretion, from the Union. But if the Federal Constitution be a government owing protection to individuals and entitled to their obedience, whether formed by the people of the United States in the aggregate, or by the same people as citizens of the respective states, no state authority can dissolve the rela

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tions subsisting between that government and the individuals subjected in either mode to its authority. From the very nature of those relations, nothing can dissolve them but REVOLUTION; and there can, therefore, be no such thing as secession without revolution. The Constitution establishes a union between the people of the several states, intended to be perpetual. It contains numerous provisions founded on that supposition, and among them, one for its own amendment; none for its abandonment. It declares that new states may be admitted into the Union, but not that old states may withdraw from it. The Union is not, like the Confederation, reducible even to a perpetual alliance between the states, much less to a temporary one; but it is an association of the people of the several states in one mass, under a permanent and paramount constitution of gov ernment, operating upon them as individuals, created and assented to by that power in each state which alone had authority to abrogate its particular Constitution, or so far to modify it as to surrender powers to the General Government which had previously been delegated to the state governments. No state, therefore, can undo what the people have done, nor absolve its citizens from their obligations to obey the laws of the Union. It cannot divest them of their paramount rights as citizens of the United States; nor can the members of the state legislatures renounce their own oaths to support the Federal Constitution as the supreme law of the land; neither can any convention of the people of any state, any more than the people themselves, collectively or individually, dispense with their obligations, or dissolve their allegiance to the United States, unless they

respectively possess the constitutional power of settling for themselves the construction of this supreme law in all doubtful cases.

The practical result of this great question turns, then, on this single point. It has not as yet been seriously pretended that each individual may judge for himself, and determine in his own case, the nature and extent of his obligations as a member of the Union. But if the state within whose local jurisdiction he may happen to reside, may judge for him, or for itself, in a case of an alleged violation of the Federal Constitution, and finally decide and execute their respective decisions by their own powers, the inference follows that, being sovereign, there is no power to control the decision of the state, and its own judgment on its own contract must be conclusive. But this doctrine is founded in mere theory and assumption; and is refuted, not only by plain and express constitutional provisions, but by the very nature of the compact. It has been shown most conclusively, in the legislative halls,* as well as in the judicial tribunals of the Union, that the Government of the United States possesses, in its appropriate departments, the authority of final decision on all these questions of power, both by ne cessary implication and express grant.

1. If the Constitution be, indeed, a government existing over all the states, operating upon individuals, and not a mere treaty of alliance, it must, upon general principles, possess the authority in question, as it is, in fact, an authority naturally belonging to all governments. And although the Constitution establishes a govern

* Vide the speeches of Mr. Webster on this subject in the Senate of the United States.