of their sovereign and
independent jurisdiction."

"The truth is," he adds, "that the great principles of the Constitution
proposed by the Convention may be considered _less as absolutely new,
than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of
Confederation_."[90]

In the papers immediately following, he establishes this position in
detail by an analysis of the principal powers delegated to the Federal
Government, showing that the spirit of the original instructions to the
Convention had been followed in revising "the Federal Constitution" and
rendering it "adequate to the exigencies of government and the
preservation of the Union."[91]

The present Union owes its very existence to the dissolution, by
separate secession of its members, of the former Union, which, as we
have thus seen, as to its _organic principles_, rested upon precisely
the same foundation. The right to withdraw from the association results,
in either case, from the same principles--principles which, I think,
have been established on an impregnable basis of history, reason, law,
and precedent.

It is not contended that this right should be resorted to for
insufficient cause, or, as the writer already quoted on the law of
partnership says, "wantonly and injuriously to the other partners,"
without responsibility of the seceding party for any damage thus done.
No association can be dissolved without a likelihood of the occurrence
of incidental questions concerning common property and mutual
obligations--questions sometimes of a complex and intricate sort. If a
wrong be perpetrated, in such case, it is a matter for determination by
the means usually employed among independent and sovereign
powers--negotiation, arbitration, or, in the failure of these, by war,
with which, unfortunately, Christianity and civilization have not yet
been able entirely to dispense. But the suggestion of possible evils
does not at all affect the question of right. There is no great
principle in the affairs either of individuals or of nations that is not
liable to such difficulties in its practical application.

But, we are told, there is no mention made of secession in the
Constitution. Mr. Everett says: "The States are not named in it; the
word sovereignty does not occur in it; the right of secession is as much
ignored in it as the procession of the equinoxes." We have seen how very
untenable is the assertion that the States are not named in it, an