the United States, not
representatives of the particular State from which they come. They are
paid by the United States, not by the State; nor are they accountable to
it for any act done in performance of their legislative functions; and
however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and
prefer the interests of their particular constituents when they come in
conflict with any other partial or local interest, yet it is their first
and highest duty, as representatives of the United States, to promote
the general good.

The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a _government_, not a
league, and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in
any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which
all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people
individually, not upon the States; they retained all the power they did
not grant. But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as
to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, can not
from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession
does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any
injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the
contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole
Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is
to say that the United States is not a nation; because it would be a
solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its
connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without
committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may
be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a
constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only
be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to
assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur
the penalties consequent upon a failure.

Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said the parties to that
compact may, when they feel aggrieved, depart from it; but it is
precisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A contract is an
agreement or binding obligation. It may by its terms have a sanction or
penalty for its breach, or it may not. If it contains no sanction, it
may be broken with no other consequence than moral guilt; if it have a
sanction, then the breach incurs the designated or implied