penalty. A
league between independent nations, generally, has no sanction other
than a moral one; or if it should contain a penalty, as there is no
common superior, it cannot be enforced. A government, on the contrary,
always has a sanction, express or implied; and, in our case, it is both
necessarily implied and expressly given. An attempt by force of arms to
destroy a government is an offense, by whatever means the constitutional
compact may have been formed; and such government has the right, by the
law of self-defense, to pass acts for punishing the offender, unless
that right is modified, restrained, or resumed by the constitutional
act. In our system, although it is modified in the case of treason, yet
authority is expressly given to pass all laws necessary to carry its
powers into effect, and under this grant provision has been made for
punishing acts which obstruct the due administration of the laws.

It would seem superfluous to add anything to show the nature of that
union which connects us; but as erroneous opinions on this subject are
the foundation of doctrines the most destructive to our peace, I must
give some further development to my views on this subject. No one,
fellow-citizens, has a higher reverence for the reserved rights of the
States than the magistrate who now addresses you. No one would make
greater personal sacrifices, or official exertions, to defend them from
violation; but equal care must be taken to prevent, on their part, an
improper interference with, or resumption of, the rights they have
vested in the nation. The line has not been so distinctly drawn as to
avoid doubts in some cases of the exercise of power. Men of the best
intentions and soundest views may differ in their construction of some
parts of the Constitution; but there are others on which dispassionate
reflection can leave no doubt. Of this nature appears to be the assumed
right of secession. It rests, as we have seen, on the alleged and
undivided sovereignty of the States, and of their having formed in this
sovereign capacity a compact which is called the Constitution, from
which, because they made it, they have the right to secede. Both of
these positions are erroneous, and some of the arguments to prove them
so have been anticipated.

The States severally have not retained their entire sovereignty. It has
been shown that in becoming parts of a nation, not members of a league,
they surrendered many of their essential part