Northern standpoint, within fifteen years after the
organization of that Government under the Constitution. Whether his
reasons for advocating a dissolution of the Union were valid and
sufficient, or not, is another question which it is not necessary to
discuss. His authority is cited only as showing the opinion prevailing
in the North at that day with regard to the _right_ of secession from
the Union, if deemed advisable by the ultimate and irreversible judgment
of the people of a sovereign State.

In 1811, on the bill for the admission of Louisiana as a State of the
Union, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, a member of Congress from Massachusetts,
said

"If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is
virtually a dissolution of this Union; that it will free the
States from their moral obligation; and as it will be the right
of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare
for a separation--amicably if they can, violently if they must."

Mr. Poindexter, delegate from what was then the Mississippi Territory,
took exception to these expressions of Mr. Quincy, and called him to
order. The Speaker (Mr. Varnum, of Massachusetts) sustained Mr.
Poindexter, and decided that the suggestion of a dissolution of the
Union was out of order. An appeal was taken from this decision, _and it
was reversed_. Mr. Quincy proceeded to vindicate the propriety of his
position in a speech of some length, in the course of which he said:

"Is there a principle of public law better settled or more
conformable to the plainest suggestions of reason than that the
violation of a contract by one of the parties may be considered
as exempting the other from its obligations? Suppose, in private
life, thirteen form a partnership, and ten of them undertake to
admit a new partner without the concurrence of the other three;
would it not be at their option to abandon the partnership after
so palpable an infringement of their rights? How much more in
the political partnership, where the admission of new
associates, without previous authority, is so pregnant with
obvious dangers and evils!"

It is to be remembered that these men--Cabot, Pickering. Quincy, and
others--whose opinions and expressions have been cited, were not
Democrats, misled by extreme theories of State rights, but leaders and
expositors of the highest type of "Federalism, and of a strong central
Government." Th