tes in the Union.
The ratification of the constitution by the original States was a free
act, as much so as the accession of a new State formed from territory
subject to the Union is a free act, and a free act is an act which one
is free to do or not to do, as he pleases. What a State is free to do
or not to do, it is free to undo, if it chooses. There is nothing in
either the State constitution or in that of the United States that
forbids it.

This is denied. The population and domain are inseparable in the
State; and if the State could take itself out of the Union, it would
take them out, and be ipso facto a sovereign State foreign to the
Union. It would take the domain and the population out of the Union,
it is conceded and even maintained, but not therefore would it take
them out of the jurisdiction of the Union, or would they exist as a
State foreign to the Union; for population and territory may coexist,
as Dacota, Colorado, or New Mexico, out of the Union, and yet be
subject to the Union, or within the jurisdiction of the United States.

But the Union is formed by the surrender by each of the States of its
individual sovereignty, and each State by its admission into the Union
surrenders its individual sovereignty, or binds itself by a
constitutional compact to merge its individual sovereignty in that of
the whole. It then cannot cease to be a State in the Union without
breach of contract. Having surrendered its sovereignty to the Union,
or bound itself by the constitution to exercise its original
sovereignty only as one of the United States, it can unmake itself of
its state character, only by consent of the United States, or by a
successful revolution. It is by virtue of this fact that secession is
rebellion against the United States, and that the General government,
as representing the Union, has the right and the duty to suppress it by
all the forces at its command.

There can be no rebellion where there is no allegiance. The States in
the Union cannot owe allegiance to the Union, for they are it, and for
any one to go out of it is no more an act of rebellion than it is for a
king to abdicate his throne. The Union is not formed by the surrender
to it by the several States of their respective individual sovereignty.
Such surrender could, as we have seen, form only an alliance, or a
confederation, not one sovereign people; and from an alliance, or
confederation, the ally or confederate has, saving it