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 are 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 on a failure.

Because the Union was formed by a compact, it is said the parties to
that compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart from it;
but it is precisely because it is a compact that they can not. A compact
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
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 can not 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 s