reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people or to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this State oppressed by cruel and unauthorised enactments, this Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and to wrest from the oppressor his victim. This is the spirit of our Union, and thus has it been explained by the very man who now sets at defiance all the principles of his early political life. The question, then, is not a question of power or right, but of time and expediency.

This same Legislature appointed delegates to meet others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, who assembled in convention at Hartford in the first-named State, on December 15, 1814. After reciting various grievances against the central power, the convention declared that:

Though acts of Congress, in violation of the Constitution, were merely void, yet it did not seem to consist with the respect and forbearance due from a Confederated State towards the general government to fly at once upon every infraction to open resistance. The mode and energy of opposition ought rather to conform to the nature of the violation, the intention of its authors, the extent of the injury inflicted by it, the determination manifested to persist in it, and the danger of delay. Yet, in cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Constitution affecting the sovereignty of a State and the liberties of the people, it was not only the right, but the duty also, of the State to interpose its authority for their protection. When emergencies occur, either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own judges, and execute their own decisions.

At the time the discussion took place in Congress in reference to the admission of Texas, the Legislature of Massachusetts protested against such a policy, declaring that, should the 'annexation' take place, she would secede from the Union; and the statute has never been repealed.

On all these six occasions, the Federalists, or Whigs, in Massachusetts were the leading secessionists.*

Here is Pennsylvanian opinion on the same subject. The Hon. William Rawle, one of the ablest members of the Philadelphia bar, wrote as follows, in 1825 :

The Union is an association of the people of the Republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those Republics. The people of each pledge themselves to preserve that form of government in all. Thus each becomes responsible to the rest that no other form of government shall prevail in it, and all are bound to preserve it in everyone.

But the mere compact, without the power to enforce it, would be of little value. Now, this power can be nowhere so properly lodged as in the Union itself. Hence the term 'guarantee' indicates that the United States are authorised to

Within two months after the formation of the first Union under the Articles of Confederation, and while the revolutionary war was yet pending, the New England States were desirous of 'seceding' therefrom, in consequence of the derangement of the finances, owing to the enormous issues of 'Continental Money.' The disgust and impatience of the people of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (Maine at that time was a portion of the former and Vermont part of the latter State) were so great that they moved for instructions to their delegates in Congress to make overtures for peace with Great Britain. In Connecticut the minds of the people were so directed in that way, that if any influential person had stood forth, and appealed to those who wished to preserve their charter and enjoy immediate peace, he would have been instantly joined by a vast majority of the colony, in a resolve to withdraw from Congress, and oppose what they alleged to be the 'pernicious laws by which they had been so often cheated of their property.' Quietness was only restored by the masses discrediting the 'continental greenbacks,' and on May 7, 1781, they ceased to circulate. On this occasion, as well as the second war with England, the New England States had no moral right to contemplate availing themselves of their privilege of seceding from the other States. They had all entered the conflict together, and it would have been unfair to have left the more Southern States in the lurch. A member of a mercantile firm has no right to withdraw therefrom when his house is in difficulties; 'secession' should only take place when the concern is unembarrassed. The Yankees threw cold water upon the Mexican war, and contributed but very few troops to the service. Even those persons who did aid in the campaign were very unpopular until the successes of the American arms began to be announced. The Puritans were then not slow in taking a share of credit to themselves.

oppose, and, if possible, to prevent, every State in the Union from relinquishing the republican form of government; and, as an auxiliary means, they are expressly authorised and required to employ their force, on the application of the constituted authorities of each State, to repress domestic violence. If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a State for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could be thus called forth to subdue it.

Yet it is not to be understood that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a State should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government; or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring, according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.

The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded; which is, that the people have in all cases a right to determine how they will be governed.

This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, though not expressed, was mutually understood; and the doctrine heretofore presented to the reader in regard to the indefeasible nature of personal allegiance, is so far qualified in respect to allegiance to the United States. It was observed that it was competent for a State to make a compact with its citizens, that the reciprocal obligations of protection and allegiance might cease on certain events; and it was further observed, that allegiance would necessarily cease on the dissolution of the society to which it was due. The States, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union, but while they continue they must retain the character of representative Republics.

The secession of a State from the Union depends upon the will of the people of such State. The people alone, as we have already seen, hold the power to alter their constitution. The Constitution of the United States is to a certain extent incorporated with the constitutions of the several States by the act of the people. The State legislatures have only to perform certain organic operations in respect to it. To withdraw from the Union comes not within the general scope of their delegated authority. There must be an express provision to that effect inserted in the State constitutions. This is not at present the case with any of them, and it would perhaps be impolitic to confide it to them. A matter so momentous ought not to be intrusted to those who would have it in their power to exercise it lightly and precipitately upon sudden dissatisfaction or causeless jealousy, perhaps against the interests and the wishes of a majority of their constituents.

But in any manner by which a secession is to take place, nothing is more certain than that the act should be deliberate, clear, and unequivocal. The perspicuity and solemnity of the original obligation require correspondent qualities in its dissolution. The power of the general government cannot be defeated. or impaired by an ambiguous or implied secession on the part of the State, although a secession may perhaps be conditional. The people of the State may have some reasons to complain in respect to the acts of the general government; they may, in such cases, invest some of their own officers with the power of negotiation, and may declare an absolute secession in case of their failure. Still, however, the secession must, in such case, be distinctly and peremptorily declared to take place in that event, and in such case- -as in the case of an unconditional secessionthe previous ligament with the Union would be legitimately and fairly destroyed. But in either case the people is the only motive power.

To withdraw from the Union is a solemn, serious act. Whenever it may appear expedient to the people of a State, it must be manifested in a direct and unequivocal manner. If it is ever done indirectly, the people must refuse to elect representatives, as well as to suffer their Legislature to reappoint

senators. The senator whose time has not yet expired must be forbidden to continue in the exercise of his functions.

But without plain decisive measures of this nature, proceeding from the only legitimate source the people—the United States cannot consider their legislative powers over such States suspended, nor their executive or judicial powers in any way impaired; and they would not be obliged to desist from the collection of revenue within such State.

As to the remaining States among themselves, there is no opening for a doubt.

Secession may reduce the number to the smallest integer admitting combination. They would remain united under the same principles and regulations among themselves that now apply to the whole; for a State cannot be compelled by other States to withdraw from the Union; and, therefore, if two or more determine to remain united, although all the others desert them, nothing can be discovered in the Constitution to prevent it.

These are opinions deliberately expressed, not in reference to any particular suit or any particular action, but the result of the general reflections of a highly educated legal mind as to the Constitution of the United States; and these, too, of a man eminently conservative in his character, and entirely unambitious, who eschewed political life, refused an office of the highest honour under the greatest man our country has ever produced, and belonged to a party that certainly was not indisposed to carry the Federal powers to the utmost extent that the Constitution justified.

Later, in 1832, South Carolina thus expressed herself, when she nullified the protective tariff that had been passed by the Federal Congress :—

That the people of South Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard, and that they will consider the passage of any Act of Congress, abolishing or closing the ports of