Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/97

 Annual Reunion of the Association of A, N, V. 89

For nearly two years after the first ratification, by Delaware in December, 1787, North Carolina held aloof from the Union, and for more than a year after the government went into operation, the great State of Rhode Island remained a free and independent nation. No attempt was ever made, or even suggested, to force them into the new Union, or to infringe even the least of their rights as free and inde- pendent States. The secession of the other eleven States from the old confederation, which was expressly declared to be a " perpetual union," furnishes the second precedent in our history for the exercise of State sovereignty when the exigency of circumstances demanded it.

If it be argued that the Constitution contemplated an indissoluble Union, and therefore makes no provision for the exercise of the sov- ereign right of a State to withdraw from it, it may be replied that the grant of certain powers to the general government for specific pur- poses, by plain implication, reserves a remedy for the abuse of those powers. That while the design of the Constitution was to form " a more perfect Union,*' it announces with equal emphasis its purpose was doubtless believed by the great men who framed it, that the administration of justice and a jealous concern for the welfare of all the States would be co-existent with the Union itself, which, bound together by these strong forces of attraction, might safely be launched upon the sea of national existence.
 * 'to establish justice'* and** to promote the general welfare.*' It

NO POWER OF COERCION.

But if the Constitution does not provide a remedy for the perver- sion of its delegated powers by the general government, neither does it designate the means by which a State may be held within the Union when those powers are employed for her injury and the impairment of her equality as a member of that Union — an equality guaranteed by the whole tenor and spirit of the Constitution.

That the power to coerce States under any circumstances was never intended to be invested in the general government, is conclu- sively setded by the action of the constitutional convention of 1787, when a scheme of government was introduced by Mr. Randolph, which, among other provisions, proposed to invest Congress with the power *' to call forth the force of the Union against any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof.** George Mason, who may jusriy be termed the prophet statesman of his day, argued that " punishment could not, in the nature of things,