of any Federal duty imposed upon them by the Constitution.
But there is a power beyond and above that of either the Federal or
State governments--the power of the people of the State, who ordained
and established the Constitution, as far as it applies to themselves,
reserving, as I think has been demonstrated, the right to reassume the
grants of power therein made, when they deem it necessary for their
safety or welfare to do so. At the behest of this power, it certainly
becomes not only the right, but the duty, of their State Legislature to
refrain from any action implying adherence to the Union, or partnership,
from which the sovereign has withdrawn.

[Footnote 96: "Madison Papers," pp. 732, 761.]

[Footnote 97: Ibid., p. 822.]

[Footnote 98: Ibid., p. 914.]

[Footnote 99: Elliott's "Debates," vol. ii, p. 199.]

[Footnote 100: Ibid., pp. 232, 233.]

[Footnote 101: Elliott's "Debates," vol. iii, p. 117.]

[Footnote 102: "Congressional Debates," vol. ix, Part I, p. 566.]

[Footnote 103: "Federalist," No. lix.]

CHAPTER XIII.

Some Objections considered.--The New States.--Acquired
Territory.--Allegiance, false and true.--Difference between
Nullification and Secession.--Secession a Peaceable Remedy.--No
Appeal to Arms.--Two Conditions noted.

It would be only adding to a superabundance of testimony to quote
further from the authors of the Constitution in support of the
principle, unquestioned in that generation, that the people who
granted--that is to say, of course, the people of the several
States--might resume their grants. It will require but few words to
dispose of some superficial objections that have been made to the
application of this doctrine in a special case.

It is sometimes said that, whatever weight may attach to principles
founded on the sovereignty and independence of the original thirteen
States, they can not apply to the States of more recent
origin--constituting now a majority of the members of the Union--because
these are but the offspring or creatures of the Union, and must of
course be subordinate and dependent.

This objection would scarcely occur to any instructed mind, though it
may possess a certain degree of specious plausibility for the untaught.
It is enough to answer that the entire equality of the States, in every
particular, is a vital condition of their union. Every new member that
has been admitted into the partnership of States came in, as is
e