then to
argue that as a league is a compact, every compact between nations must,
of course, be a league, and that from such an engagement every sovereign
power has a right to recede. But it has been shown that in this sense
the States are not sovereign, and that even if they were, and the
national Constitution had been formed by compact, there would be no
right in any one State to exonerate itself from the obligation.

So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that it is
necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit
of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifice of interest and opinions.
Can those sacrifices be recalled? Can the States, who magnanimously
surrendered their title to the territories of the West, recall the
grant? Will the inhabitants of the inland States agree to pay the duties
that may be imposed without their assent by those on the Atlantic or the
Gulf, for their own benefit? Shall there be a free port in one State,
and enormous duties in another? No one believes that any right exists in
a single State to involve all the others in these and countless other
evils, contrary to engagements solemnly made. Every one must see that
the other States, in self-defense, must oppose it at all hazards.

These are the alternatives that are presented by the convention: A
repeal of all the acts for raising revenue, leaving the government
without the means of support; or an acquiesce in the dissolution of our
Union by the secession of one of its members. When the first was
proposed, it was known that it could not be listened to for a moment. It
was known if force was applied to oppose the execution of the laws, that
it must be repelled by force--that Congress could not, without involving
itself in disgrace and the country in ruin, accede to the proposition;
and yet if this is not done in a given day, or if any attempt is made to
execute the laws, the State is, by the ordinance, declared to be out of
the Union. The majority of a convention assembled for the purpose have
dictated these terms, or rather this rejection of all terms, in the name
of the people of South Carolina. It is true that the governor of the
State speaks of the submission of their grievances to a convention of
all the States; which, he says, they "sincerely and anxiously seek and
desire." Yet this obvious and constitutional mode of obtaining the
sense of the other States on the construction of the federal compact,
and