es had in common. But Calhoun, in a manner characteristic
of his peculiar and dangerous type of intellect, had early seen in a view
of State sovereignty, which would otherwise have been obsolete, the most
serviceable weapon for the joint interests of the Southern States. In a
society where intellectual life was restricted, his ascendency had been
great, though his disciples had, reasonably enough, thrown aside the
qualifications which his subtle mind had attached to the right of
secession. Thus in the Southern States generally, even among men most
strongly opposed to the actual proposal to secede, the real or alleged
constitutional right of a State to secede if it chose now passed
unquestioned and was even regarded as a precious liberty.

It is impossible to avoid asking whether on this question of
constitutional law the Northern opinion or the Southern opinion was
correct. (The question was indeed an important question in determining
the proper course of procedure for a President when confronted with
secession, but it must be protested that the moral right and political
wisdom of neither party in the war depended mainly, if at all, upon this
legal point. It was a question of the construction which a court of law
should put upon a document which was not drawn up with any view to
determining this point.) If we go behind the Constitution, which was
then and is now in force, to the original document of which it took the
place, we shall find it entitled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual
Union," but we shall not find any such provisions as men desirous of
creating a stable and permanent federal government might have been
expected to frame. If we read the actual Constitution we shall find no
word distinctly implying that a State could or could not secede. As to
the real intention of its chief authors, there can be no doubt that they
hoped and trusted the Union would prove indissoluble, and equally little
doubt that they did not wish to obtrude upon those whom they asked to
enter into it the thought that this step would be irrevocable. For the
view taken in the South there is one really powerful argument, on which
Jefferson Davis insisted passionately in the argumentative memoirs with
which he solaced himself in old age. It is that in several of the
States, when the Constitution was accepted, public declarations were made
to the citizens of those States by their own representatives that a State
might withdraw f