Page:Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson.djvu/105

 This is true only "where the innocent party is desirous to continue the obligations of the covenant, but does not apply where he is content to take the other remedy, of declaring the broken covenant no longer obligatory upon him. Either mode of redress may be rightfully resorted to by the injured party, and his policy or discretion must decide which he will adopt: but he cannot rightfully take both. If this was not so, the question of mere right, would necessarily be converted into one of brute force, and right and power would become the same. The conclusion from these premises is, that when a covenant entered into between a State and its co-States is violated by any of the parties to that Covenant, any State may of right declare the Covenant broken, and so no longer obligatory upon itself. In this view of the subject it is of no moment, whether the government of the United States be considered as a party to the covenant or not, because, if the government is a party, then the principle applies in terms; and if not a party, but only the agent of the parties who approve and sanction its acts, the act of violating the Constitution, becomes by adoption the act of all the principals who approve, and sanction it, and so the same consequence follows, in either case. This right of a State, to declare a Covenant broken by some of the other parties no longer obligatory upon itself, when one of the objects of the broken covenant is "to form a more perfect Union," is the right of Secession, neither more nor less.

He who denies this right, must contend, that a majority of the States, containing a majority of the People, may break this Constitution at their will, and that the minority of the States and People, is bound in good faith, and of right, still to observe it on their part. For if an unconstitutional law be once passed, the Sedition law for example, it can never be repealed without the concurrence of both Houses of Congress, that is to say, without the concurrence of a majority of the States in the Senate, and of a majority of the People in the House of Representatives.

Nay, this is not all, for no amendment of the Constitution can be made to redress the grievance, however great that may be; for if seven only of these States refuse to ratify the amendment, the other Seventeen not constituting three fourths of all the States, cannot make the amendment valid. There remains then