Webster, dissolved it.
Secession, on the other hand, was the assertion of the inalienable right
of a people to change their government, whenever it ceased to fulfill
the purposes for which it was ordained and established. Under our form
of government, and the cardinal principles upon which it was founded, it
should have been a peaceful remedy. The withdrawal of a State from a
league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The
government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It
is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term
this action of a sovereign a "rebellion," is a gross abuse of language.
So is the flippant phrase which speaks of it as an appeal to the
"arbitrament of the sword." In the late contest, in particular, there
was no appeal by the seceding States to the arbitrament of arms. There
was on their part no invitation nor provocation to war. They stood in an
attitude of self-defense, and were attacked for merely exercising a
right guaranteed by the original terms of the compact. They neither
tendered nor accepted any challenge to the wager of battle. The man who
defends his house against attack can not with any propriety be said to
have submitted the question of his right to it to the arbitrament of
arms.
Two moral obligations or restrictions upon a seceding State certainly
exist: in the first place, not to break up the partnership without good
and sufficient cause; and, in the second, to make an equitable
settlement with former associates, and, as far as may be, to avoid the
infliction of loss or damage upon any of them.
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