So
far from being against the Constitution or incompatible with it, we
contend that, if the right to secede is not prohibited to the States,
and no power to prevent it expressly delegated to the United States, it
remains as reserved to the States or the people, from whom all the
powers of the General Government were derived.
The compact between the States which formed the Union was in the nature
of a partnership between individuals without limitation of time, and the
recognized law of such partnerships is thus stated by an eminent lawyer
of Massachusetts in a work intended for popular use:
"If the articles between the partners do not contain an
agreement that the partnership shall continue for a specified
time, it may be dissolved at the pleasure of either partner. But
no partner can exercise this power wantonly and injuriously to
the other partners, without making himself responsible for the
damage he thus causes. If there be a provision that the
partnership shall continue a certain time, this is binding."[88]
We have seen that a number of "sovereign, free, and independent" States,
during the war of the Revolution, entered into a partnership with one
another, which was not only unlimited in duration, but expressly
declared to be a "perpetual union." Yet, when that Union failed to
accomplish the purposes for which it was formed, the parties withdrew,
separately and independently, one after another, without any question
made of their right to do so, and formed a new association.
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