Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/367

 CH. III.] a learned commentator should have admitted the right of any state, or of the people of any state, without the consent of the rest, to secede from the Union at its own pleasure. The people of the United States have a right, to abolish, or alter the constitution of the United States; but that the people of a single state have such a right, is a proposition requiring some reasoning beyond the suggestion, that it is implied in the principles, on which our political systems are founded. It seems, indeed, to have its origin in the notion of all governments being founded in compact, and therefore liable to be dissolved by the parties, or either of them; a notion, which it has been our purpose to question, at least in the sense, to which the objection applies.

§ 360. To us the doctrine of Mr. Dane appears far better founded, that "the constitution of the United States is not a compact or contract agreed to by two or more parties, to be construed by each for itself, and here to stop for the want of a common arbiter to revise the construction of each party or state. But that it is, as the people have named and called it, truly a Constitution; and they properly said, 'We, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish this constitution,' and not, we, the people of each state." And this