ination. Continue to execute all the express
provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure
forever--it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not
provided for in the instrument itself.

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association
of States in the nature of contract merely, can it as a contract be
peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to
a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak; but does it not require
all to lawfully rescind it?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in
legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of
the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was
formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured
and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further
matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted
and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation
in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining
and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."

But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the
States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the
Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can
lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect
are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States,
against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or
revolutionary, according to circumstances.

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the
Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as
the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the
Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to
be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as
practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall
withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the
contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the
declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and
maintain itself.

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there
shall be n