of these States is perpetual.
Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all
national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper
ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
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 a 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 in
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 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 shall be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this,
which I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, I shall perfectly
perform it, so far as is practicable, unless my rightful masters, the
American people, shall withhold the requisition, or in some
authoritative manner direct t