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Carolina, in her ordinance, first declares certain acts of Congress
unconstitutional, and proceeds, with the same ordinance, to
nullification first, and then to secession, we deny her constitutional
right to nullify or secede for the same reason; because the right
declared by her ordinance to render an act of Congress unconstitutional
by the judgment of a single State is a usurpation of power. Governor
Hayne, of Carolina, in his late proclamation, inquires if that State was
linked to the Union 'in the iron bonds of a perpetual Union.' These
bonds were not of iron, or Carolina would have never worn them, but they
are the enduring chain of peace and Union. One link could not be severed
from this chain, united in all its parts, without an entire dissolution
of all the bonds of union; and one State cannot dissolve the union among
all the States. Yet Carolina admits this to be the inevitable
consequence of the separation of that State; for, in the address of her
convention, she declares that 'the separation of South Carolina would
inevitably produce a _general dissolution of the Union_.' Has the
Government of the Union no power to _preserve itself from destruction_,
or must we submit to a 'general dissolution of the Union' whenever any
one State thinks proper to issue the despotic mandate? It was the
declared object of our ancestors, the hope of their children, that they
had formed 'a PERPETUAL Union.' The original compact of Carolina with
her sister States, by which the confederacy was erected, is called
'Articles of Confederation and _perpetual_ Union.' In the thirteenth
article of this confederacy, it is expressly declared that 'the Union
shall be _perpetual_;' and in the ratification of this compact, South
Carolina united with her sister States in declaring: 'And we do further
solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents'
that 'the Union _shall be perpetual_;' and may she now withdraw this
pledge without a violation of the compact? By the old confederacy, then,
the Union was _perpetual_; and the declared object of the Constitution
was to form 'a more perfect Union' than that existing under the former
confederacy. Now, would this Union be more perfect under the new than
the old confederacy, if by the latter the Union was perpetual, but,
under the former, limited in its duration at the will of a single State?

The advocates of secession claim the constitutional power for each State
to annul, not on