To the people alone
is there reserved as well the dissolving as the constituent
power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the
tie of conscience, binding them to the retributive justice of
Heaven.
"With these qualifications, we may admit the same right as
vested in the _people of every State_ in the Union, with
reference to the General Government, which was exercised by the
people of the united colonies with reference to the supreme head
of the British Empire, of which they formed a part; and under
these limitations have the people of each State in the Union a
right to secede from the confederated Union itself.
"Thus stands the RIGHT. But the indissoluble link of union
between the people of the several States of this confederated
nation is, after all, not in the RIGHT, but in the HEART. If the
day should ever come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections
of the people of these States shall be alienated from each
other, when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold
indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into
hatred, the bonds of political association will not long hold
together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of
conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and _far better
will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in
friendship with each other than to be held together by
constraint_.
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