But
no partner can exercise this power wantonly and injuriously to
the other partners, without making himself responsible for the
damage he thus causes. If there be a provision that the
partnership shall continue a certain time, this is binding."[88]

We have seen that a number of "sovereign, free, and independent" States,
during the war of the Revolution, entered into a partnership with one
another, which was not only unlimited in duration, but expressly
declared to be a "perpetual union." Yet, when that Union failed to
accomplish the purposes for which it was formed, the parties withdrew,
separately and independently, one after another, without any question
made of their right to do so, and formed a new association. One of the
declared objects of this new partnership was to form "a more perfect
union." This certainly did not mean more perfect in respect of duration;
for the former union had been declared perpetual, and perpetuity admits
of no addition. It did not mean that it was to be more indissoluble; for
the delegates of the States, in ratifying the former compact of union,
had expressed themselves in terms that could scarcely be made more
stringent. They then said:

"And we do further _solemnly plight and engage the faith of our
respective constituents_, that they shall abide by the
determinations of the United States in Congress assembled, on
all questions which, by the said confederation, are submitted to
them; and that the articles thereof shall be _inviolably
observed_ by the States we respectively represent; and that _the
Union shall be perpetual_."[89]

The formation of a "more perfect union" was accomplished by the
organization of a government more complete in its various branches,
legislative, executive, and judicial, and by the delegation to this
Government of certain additional powers or functions which had
previously been exercised by the Governments of the respective
States--especially in providing the means of operating directly upon
individuals for the enforcement of its legitimately delegated authority.
There was no abandonment nor modification of the essential principle of
a _compact_ between sovereigns, which applied to the one case as fully
as to the other. There was not the slightest intimation of so radical a
revolution as the surrender of the sovereignty of the contracting
parties would have been. The additional powers conferred upon the
Federal