htest doubt as to the impossibility of modifying, by the violent
decision of a few, the common Constitution which contains the
enumeration of the States, and which can only be amended by a solemn
act, voted in the special form prescribed by the compact. Mr. Lincoln
merely expressed the general opinion when he said the other day: "The
Union is a regular marriage, not a sort of free relation which can be
maintained only by passion." _Secession is Revolution_ is a political
axiom which has been current at all times in the United States. It is
because they are something else than a juxtaposition of States, that
they comprise, by the side of a Senate in which all the States are
equal, a House of Representatives, in which the number of deputies is in
proportion to the population. "Our Constitution," wrote Madison, "is
neither a centralized State nor a Federal Government, but a blending of
the two." The experience which they had had from 1776 to 1789 had taught
the different States the necessity of giving a more concentrated
character to their federation. Let us not forget that they are bound by
oath to remain faithful to _perpetual union_, and that there is not a
federal officer in America who has not sworn to maintain this Union.

I shall not dwell on the fact that the Confederation purchased with its
money two of the States that now pretend to secede from it; that it gave
seventy-five millions to France for Louisiana, and twenty-five millions
to Spain for Florida; no, I choose to appeal from this to precedents,
the authority of which is not contested, and which form, in some sort,
the interpreting commentary of the Constitution. In the last century,
the State of New York, on giving in its adhesion to the Constitution,
desired to reserve to itself this same power of seceding some day if it
pleased; but such a reservation was rejected. At the epoch of the war of
1812 and the embargo laws, a convention of the New England States
assembled at Hartford, and talked of eventual separation, whereupon the
Southern party likened all separation without consent to treason, and
this doctrine was sustained by the _Richmond Inquirer_, the organ of
Jefferson. When, afterwards, South Carolina, accustomed to the fact,
dared proclaim that act of nullification which was the prelude to a
complete renunciation of federal obligations, it was plainly signified
to her that a revolt would be suppressed by force of arms, and she
yielded on the spot. Wh