Mr.
Madison, in the "Federalist,"[33] says: "It has been heretofore noted
among the defects of the Confederation, that in many of the States it
had received no higher sanction than a mere legislative ratification."
This objection would of course have applied with greater force to the
proposed Constitution, which provided for additional grants of power
from the States, and the conferring of larger and more varied powers
upon a General Government, which was to act upon individuals instead of
States, if the question of its confirmation had been submitted merely to
the several State Legislatures. Hence the obvious propriety of referring
it to the respective _people_ of the States in their sovereign capacity,
as provided in the final article of the Constitution.
In this article provision was deliberately made for the _secession_ (if
necessary) of a part of the States from a union which, when formed, had
been declared "perpetual," and its terms and articles to be "inviolably
observed by every State."
Opposition was made to the provision on this very ground--that it was
virtually a dissolution of the Union, and that it would furnish a
precedent for future secessions. Mr. Gerry, a distinguished member from
Massachusetts--afterward Vice-President of the United States--said, "If
nine out of thirteen (States) can dissolve the compact, six out of nine
will be just as able to dissolve the future one hereafter.
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