s sacred
because they have, for their common interest, made the General
Government the depository of these powers. The unity of our political
character (as has been shown for another purpose) commenced with its
very existence. Under the royal Government we had no separate character;
our opposition to its oppressions began as _united colonies_. We were
the _United States_ under the Confederation, and the name was
perpetuated and the Union rendered more perfect by the Federal
Constitution. In none of these stages did we consider ourselves in any
other light than as forming one nation. Treaties and alliances were made
in the name of all. Troops were raised for the joint defense. How, then,
with all these proofs that under all changes of our position we had, for
designated purposes and with defined powers, created national
governments, how is it that the most perfect of those several modes of
union should now be considered as a mere league that may be dissolved at
pleasure? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as synonymous
with league, although the true term is not employed, because it would at
once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would not do to say that our
Constitution was only a league, but it is labored to prove it a compact
(which in one sense it is) and then to argue that as a league is a
compact every compact between nations must of course be a league, and
that from such an engagement every sovereign power has a right to
recede. But it has been shown that in this sense the States are not
sovereign, and that even if they were, and the national Constitution had
been formed by compact, there would be no right in any one State to
exonerate itself from its obligations.

So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession that it is
necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit
of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and opinions.
Can those sacrifices be recalled? Can the States who magnanimously
surrendered their title to the territories of the West recall the grant?
Will the inhabitants of the inland States agree to pay the duties that
may be imposed without their assent by those on the Atlantic or the Gulf
for their own benefit? Shall there be a free port in one State and
onerous duties in another? No one believes that any right exists in a
single State to involve all the others in these and countless other
evils contrary to engagements solemnly made. Everyo