"I ask, What are these principles? Do they require that, in the establishment of the Constitution, the States should be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the Constitution proposed.... Do these principles, in fine, require that the powers of the General Government should be limited, and that, beyond this limit, the States should be left in possession of their sovereignty and independence? We have seen that, in the new Government as in the old, the general powers are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated cases, are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and independent jurisdiction."
"The truth is," he adds, "that the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the Convention may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation."[90]
In the papers immediately following, he establishes this position in detail by an analysis of the principal powers delegated to the Federal Government, showing that the spirit of the original instructions to the Convention had been followed in revising "the Federal Constitution" and rendering it "adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union."[91]
The present Union owes its very existence to the dissolution, by separate secession of its members, of the former Union, which, as we have thus seen, as to its organic principles, rested upon precisely the same foundation. The right to withdraw from the association results, in either case, from the same principles—principles which, I think, have been established on an impregnable basis of history, reason, law, and precedent.
It is not contended that this right should be resorted to for insufficient cause, or, as the writer already quoted on the law of partnership says, "wantonly and injuriously to the other partners," without responsibility of the seceding party for any damage thus done. No association can be dissolved without a likelihood of the occurrence of incidental questions concerning common property and mutual obligations—questions sometimes of a complex and intricate sort. If a wrong be perpetrated, in such case, it is a matter for determination by the means usually employed among independent and sovereign powers—negotiation, arbitration, or, in the failure of these, by war, with which, unfortunately, Christianity and civilization have not yet been able entirely to dispense. But the suggestion of possible evils does not at all affect the question of right. There is no great principle in the affairs either of individuals or of nations that is not liable to such difficulties in its practical application.
But, we are told, there is no mention made of secession in the Constitution. Mr. Everett says: "The States are not named in it; the word sovereignty does not occur in it; the right of secession is as much ignored in it as the procession of the equinoxes." We have seen how very untenable is the assertion that the States are not named in it, and how much pertinency or significance in the omission of the word "sovereignty." The pertinent question that occurs is, Why was so obvious an attribute of sovereignty not expressly renounced if it was intended to surrender it? It certainly existed; it was not surrendered; therefore it still exists. This would be a more natural and rational conclusion than that it has ceased to exist because it is not mentioned.
The simple truth is, that it would have been a very extraordinary thing to incorporate into the Constitution any express provision for the secession of the States and dissolution of the Union. Its founders undoubtedly desired and hoped that it would be perpetual; against the proposition for power to coerce a State, the argument was that it would be a means, not of preserving, but of destroying, the Union. It was not for them to make arrangements for its termination—a calamity which there was no occasion to provide for in advance. Sufficient for their day was the evil thereof. It is not usual, either in partnerships between men or in treaties between governments, to make provision for a dissolution of the partnership or a termination of the treaty, unless there be some special reason for a limitation of time. Indeed, in treaties, the usual formula includes a declaration of their perpetuity; but in either case the power of the contracting parties, or of any of them, to dissolve the compact, on terms not damaging to the rights of the other parties, is not the less clearly understood. It was not necessary in the Constitution to affirm the right of secession, because it was an attribute of sovereignty, and the States had reserved all which they had not delegated.
The right of the people of the several States to resume the powers delegated by them to the common agency, was not left without positive and ample assertion, even at a period when it had never been denied. The ratification of the Constitution by Virginia has already been quoted, in which the people of that State, through their Convention, did expressly "declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them, whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will."[92]
New York and Rhode Island were no less explicit, both declaring that "the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness."[93]