sity, must, in
their intercourse with each other, decide when the failure of
one party to a contract to perform its obligations absolves the
other from the reciprocal fulfillment of its own. But this last
of earthly powers is not necessary to the freedom or
independence of States connected together by the immediate
action of the people of whom they consist. To the people alone
is there reserved as well the dissolving as the constituent
power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the
tie of conscience, binding them to the retributive justice of
Heaven.

"With these qualifications, we may admit the same right as
vested in the _people of every State_ in the Union, with
reference to the General Government, which was exercised by the
people of the united colonies with reference to the supreme head
of the British Empire, of which they formed a part; and under
these limitations have the people of each State in the Union a
right to secede from the confederated Union itself.

"Thus stands the RIGHT. But the indissoluble link of union
between the people of the several States of this confederated
nation is, after all, not in the RIGHT, but in the HEART. If the
day should ever come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections
of the people of these States shall be alienated from each
other, when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold
indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into
hatred, the bonds of political association will not long hold
together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of
conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and _far better
will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in
friendship with each other than to be held together by
constraint_. Then will be the time for reverting to the
precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the
Constitution, to form again a _more perfect Union, by dissolving
that which could no longer bind_, and to leave the separated
parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the
center."

Perhaps it is unfortunate that, in earlier and better times, when the
prospect of serious difficulties first arose, a convention of the States
was not assembled to consider the relations of the various States and
the Government of the Union. As time rolled on, the General Government,