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 been the will of all the States to reform, or even to dissolve, the government, they would not have been obstructed, as they were under the Confederation, by a pledge to perpetual union or by a prohibition against any alteration of the Constitution except by unanimous consent of the States. Therefore, unless the right to reassume was asserted as belonging to any State being a party to the compact, the declaration was useless and seemingly without an object. Reassumption is the correlative of delegation. By the published debates of the general convention of 1787 which prepared the Constitution, and of the State conventions to which it was severally submitted for approval or rejection as each should decide, and by the resolutions of ratification, it is clearly demonstrated that they did not surrender their dearly-bought, most prized sovereignty, freedom, and independence, or commit the absurdity of attempting to delegate inalienable rights.

At that early period sectional rivalry was manifested, and some of the most influential advocates of the new Union felt the lurking danger of faction and sought to provide against it by means consistent with the perpetuity of the Union. Faction, with the tendency of majorities to oppress minorities, was the recognized cause of failure in former federations and republics. To protect the United States from that evil, it was sought to secure a balance of power between the North and the South, by so organizing the two houses of Congress that neither section would have a majority in both. The purpose was good, but the calculation was bad, so that in a not-distant future the North, as a section, had a majority in both houses of Congress and in the electoral colleges for the choice of the President. Party did for many years control faction; and principles, independent of latitude and longitude, formed the cement of political parties. Thus it was, as late as 1853, that that true patriot and friend of the Constitution, Franklin Pierce, could conscientiously say that, politically, he knew no North, no South, no East, no West.

The wise statesmen who formed the plan for the new Union of 1787–90, with admirable caution, required a material barrier to check majorities from aggression under the influence of self interest and lust of dominion. They could not have been certain that their method of preserving the balance of power between the sections would be permanently successful. What, then, was the remedy in case of violated compact and aggression upon