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 the States surrendered their sovereignty and, by consequence, a State lost its right to secede; and the nearest approach we have had to an answer has been the inquiry, Where is the right of a State to secede set forth in the Constitution? This marks either an evasion of the issue or extreme ignorance of the history of the Union. The States delegated all the rights and powers which the general government possesses, and they agreed with each other that no State should exercise certain functions which were intrusted to the Federal Government as their agent; therefore it seems not less than puerile to ask from what part of the Constitution the right or power of a State was derived. Every power, function, or right which the States did not agree to delegate to their common agent remained with them. No one of ordinary information and intelligence can deny that the States were sovereign, free, and independent when they entered into the compact of Union. If they had not been sovereigns, they would not have been competent to form that treaty; and as none have even attempted to show where or how their sovereignty was lost, it must be regarded as among the reserved powers of the States, and hence, still being sovereigns, they had the same legal power and right to secede from the Union which they had exercised in acceding to it.

The declared purpose of the Union was to promote the, and to secure to posterity the , which the States had achieved by the sacrifices of the Revolution. The men who negotiated the compact for a "more perfect union" of the States were not visionaries or optimists, but profound students of the world's history, from which they had learned the tendency of free government to breed faction and of majorities to oppress minorities, resulting in the lamentable wreck of past federations and the loss of the liberty they were formed to secure. To guard against that danger, the representation of the States in the two houses of Congress was to be apportioned so as to secure a balance of power—i. e., so as to prevent either the North or the South from having a majority in both houses. The plan failed; the North got a majority in both houses, and history repeated itself. Under the power of Congress to levy duties on imports "to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States," duties were levied not merely for revenue, but avowedly to protect domestic